Monticello Blog

In 1762, Thomas Jefferson described Christmas as the “day of greatest mirth and jollity.”

On June 8, 2012, Smithsonian Gardens staff harvested beets, cabbage and turnips to be displayed as part of The Jefferson Table and Gillette Family Garden public program presented by the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) at the USDA Farmer’s Market.

This round of excavations has several goals. The first is to advance our understanding of how the Kitchen Road intersected with the Kitchen Path that once ran straight out the covered passage opening toward vegetable garden gate on Mulberry Row.

Today, we take for granted the varieties of foods we can buy anytime of the year at our local super market. But what would happen if we had to eat locally? Meals especially desserts would take much more time.

Time for the December installment of our monthly series in which we post a recipe from The Virginia House-wife, a recipe book published in 1824 by Mary Randolph, kinswoman to Thomas Jefferson.

Leni Sorensen makes a recipe for goose-sauce from "The Virginia House-wife," a recipe book published in 1824 by Mary Randolph.

Time for another installment of our series in which we post a recipe from The Virginia House-wife.

Leni Sorensen prepares recipe an early tomato-based catsup sauce from the 1800s.

How to make peach marmalade according to Mary Randolph, who published "The Virginia House-Wife" cookbook in 1824l

Leni Sorensen, a culinary historian of national repute, prepares eggplant using an 19th-century recipe.