Archaeologists discovered the original kitchen fireplace, along with evidence of a crane to suspend iron cooking pots, a bake oven, at least two generations of kitchen counters, or “dressers,” and most importantly, two generations of stew stoves. The stoves — potagers in French — are the key physical traces of Jefferson’s engagement with French cuisine.
A stew stove was the 18th-century analog of a cooktop: a waist-high masonry counter containing several burners fueled by charcoal taken from the fireplace. Stew stoves allowed cooks to achieve precise control of cooking temperatures and the timing of adding ingredients, followed by bouts of stirring and skimming. This control was essential to preparing fricassees, stews and sauces made with roux or emulsified with cream, butter and eggs, along with custards and glazes that were the hallmarks of classical French cooking.
Jefferson’s design drawing for the South Pavilion, dating to the late 1760s, features a five-burner stew stove and points to his early interest in French cooking, probably kindled by regular dinners at the Governor’s Palace when he was a student at William & Mary. Archaeological evidence hints that the first stew stove was not original to the kitchen but added later as part of a renovation that may have also included a new dresser. Enslaved cook Ursula Granger may have used this stove to prepare the French-influenced recipes found in the most popular English-language cookbook of the 18th century, Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery, which Jefferson owned. Ursula Granger’s son Isaac recalled, “Mrs Jefferson would come out there with a cookery book in her hand and read out of it to Isaac’s mother.”
In 1784, Jefferson took James Hemings with him to Paris with the express purpose of having him trained in French cuisine. A second kitchen renovation may postdate their return in 1789. The first stew stove was replaced with a new model that may have better matched the state-of-the-art stoves, whose use Hemings mastered in Paris. Archaeologists found the remains of this second stove, including the bottoms of four plaster-lined cleanouts that still contained ash that fell from the dismantled burners above. The dresser was also rebuilt and the room received a new coat of plaster. The plaster preserved evidence of enough built-in shelving to accommodate dozens of state-of-the-art copper pots and pans that Jefferson purchased in Paris and that Hemings inventoried before Jefferson freed him in 1796.
These are just some of the recent discoveries in the South Pavilion cellar. Visitors can see and learn more about them all in a new on-site exhibit.
