SpiceLines

So I’ve always been fascinated with Jefferson, and while I may never build a neoclassical house with a dome or grow more than a few heirloom tomato plants, I am an avid reader of his recipe and gardening journals.

Among his many accomplishments, Jefferson may have been the first to bring vanilla ice cream to America. In Vanilla: The Cultural History of the World’s Favorite Flavor and Fragrance, Patricia Rain writes that by 1850 vanilla ice cream was available in Paris, as was vanilla scented pastisserie. During his time there, she says, Jefferson was “won over” by the bean’s “intoxicating flavor.”

“On his return to the United States, he sent his aide to the marketplace to buy vanilla pods. The aide returned, announcing that no one had ever heard of such a thing as vanilla. Jefferson then wrote to William Short [his confidential secretary who remained in Paris as charge d’affaires and procurer of exotic ingredients], imploring him to send 50 vanilla pods wrapped in the middle of newspapers.”

Jefferson often begged European visitors to bring him vanilla and other “delicacies that were not yet available in America.” Rain cites an expenditure of $4 in 1792, paid to a Mr. Theophile Cassinove, a Dutch banking representative, for 100 vanilla beans.

As with many recipes, Jefferson meticulously observed and recorded the method for making vanilla ice cream, including details on how to pack the “ice pail” with layers of salt and ice. Here is his exact recipe, as reprinted in Thomas Jefferson’s Cookbook:

2 bottles of good cream
6 yolks of eggs
½ lb. of sugar
mix the yolks and sugar
put the cream on a fire in a casserole first putting in a stick of vanilla
When near boiling take it off and pour it gently into the mixture of eggs and sugar
Stir it well.
put it on the fire again stirring it thoroughly with a spoon to prevent it sticking to the casserole.
When near boiling take it off and strain it through a towel.
put it in the sorbetiere (ice pail).
then set it in ice an hour before it is to be served. Put into the ice a handful of salt
put ice all around the sorbetiere
i.e. a layer of ice a layer of salt for 3 layers.
Put salt on the coverlid of the sorbetiere & cover the whole with ice
leave it still half a quarter of an hour
Then turn the S. in the ice 10 min.
Open it to loosen with a spatula the ice from the inner sides of the S.
Open it from time to time to detach the ice from the sides
When well taken (prise) stir it well with the spatula
put it in moulds, jostling it well down on the knee
then put the mould into the same bucket of ice
leave it there to the moment of serving it.
to withdraw it, immerse the mould in warm water, tossing it well until it will come out and turn it into a plate.

How did Jefferson eat vanilla ice cream? Marie Kimball, author of the 1949 edition of Jefferson’s cookbook, says that at one Presidential dinner, the “ice cream was brought to the table in the form of small balls, enclosed in cases of warm pastry, a feat that caused great astonishment and murmurings.” Unfortunately, Jefferson’s love of elaborate dishes, “often of French origin,” caused a certain amount of grumbling. Patrick Henry complained that he was a man who had “abjured his native victuals.”

Of course Jefferson was a great man whose imagination and curiosity were boundless. Besides, who’s to say that he didn’t enjoy a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a crystal compote, eaten with a silver spoon, every now and then?