R4 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2020
astounding variety of local and
imported foods. As described by
Rep. Theophilus Bradbury (Fed-
eralist-Mass.) in 1795, the average
Thursday Congress dinner would
have put any modern Thanksgiv-
ing feast to shame, featuring “an
elegant variety of roast beef, veal,
turkeys, ducks, fowls, hams, &
puddings, jellies, oranges, apples,
nuts, and almonds, figs, raisins,
and a variety of wines and
punch.”
Producing these meals meant
a 12-to-16-hour workday with a
variety of cooks and assistants
working under Posey. Remark-
ably, the Washington household
accounts tell us that these staff
members would have been hired
and White indentured laborers —
all taking orders from an en-
slaved Black man.
And yet no one dared step out
of line. In his biography of Wash-
ington, the president’s step-
grandson, George Washington
Parke Custis, called Posey an
“artiste” who ran his kitchen with
“iron discipline,” quick to punish
those who disobeyed.
In the nearly three pages de-
voted to Posey, Custis described
his carriage, skill, exacting de-
meanor and love of fine clothes,
comparing him to a “veriest dan-
dy.” While preparing the Con-gress dinners, Posey “shone in an
all his splendor,” Custis wrote,
and “his underlings flew in all
directions to execute his orders.”
These dinners set the standard
for presidential and diplomatic
dining in the early republic.
Washington was unconcerned
with fancy foods yet fastidious
about the niceties of the table,
and Posey had the daunting task
of presenting meals that featured
the bountiful yet humble Ameri-
can fare the first president fa-
vored, as well as elegant prepara-
tions that spoke to his status. It
was not uncommon for a Virginia
ham to be featured alongside
elaborate continental meat pas-
tries. This showcasing of classical
culinary skill and American
bounty became the prototype for
diplomatic dinners and executive
functions thereafter.
Washington also had little pa-
tience for chit chat. Meals with
“the General,” as he was com-
monly called, were strained af-
fairs — all the more reason for the
food to be exquisite enough to
maintain diners’ focus.
Posey’s approach to command-
ing his kitchen set the stage for
the American celebrity chef
whose artistry was considered
necessary in the most powerful
American homes. As president,Thomas Jefferson was adamant
that French-trained chef James
Hemings, a man he had formerly
enslaved, should be his cook.
Hemings, who was by then free,
declined.Living between worlds
Posey, well-known in Philadel-
phia as “the General’s cook,” was
allowed to come and go freely
once his work was complete, and
he returned at night. He also
earned the equivalent of twice
the average man’s annual wages
selling kitchen slops with Wash-
ington’s permission, and some of
this money was spent on a gold-
headed cane. Washington also
sent for Posey’s son, Richmond —
not because the young man dem-
onstrated any culinary ability but
because his father wished it.
Once, when a prominent guest
arrived late to dinner, Washing-
ton began the meal, although
social norms would have dictated
he wait, telling his guest, “My
cook never asks whether the
company has arrived, but wheth-
er the hour has come.”
Yet Posey lived in a nether-
world between free and unfree.
Washington kept him and the
other enslaved members of the
president’s house in bondage by
circumventing the Pennsylvaniaabolition law that allowed them
to petition for freedom if they
remained in the state more than
six months. The Washingtons
regularly rotated people back to
Virginia or, in a pinch, over the
border to New Jersey — a slave
state — to reset their time in the
capital before six months were
up. The only one allowed to
overstay this time was Posey.
As a chef and a man, Posey
honed his bold self-possession,
despite being born into chattel
slavery in Virginia. It’s likely he
was strongly influenced by living
in Philadelphia, where more than
90 percent of African Americans
were free. Although captive in the
president’s house, he moved
about an abolitionist city with a
growing and influential Black
community, including such men
as Richard Allen and Absalom
Jones, abolitionists and founders
of the Free African Society.
Most of all, Philadelphia was
the greatest food city in America,
a bustling international port po-
sitioned ideally to receive foods
and culinary influence from the
North, the South and the West
Indies. Posey experienced a
world of food artisanship and
culinary creativity largely ad-
vanced by people of color, includ-
ing Charles Sang, a celebratedBY RAMIN GANESHRAMOn the third Thursday of Feb-
ruary 1795, President George
Washington proclaimed a day of
national thanksgiving to thank
God “for the Constitutions of
Government which unite and by
their union establish liberty.”
The second such proclamation
by Washington, it called for a
religious rather than a feasting
holiday, and that day’s menu is
unknown. As a regular night for
the Congress dinners hosted by
the president, it would have been
presided over by Washington’s
cook, Hercules Posey — a chef so
notable that he was famous in his
own time. Yet, the liberty Wash-
ington extolled was not some-
thing Posey enjoyed: He was
enslaved.
Posey came to Washington
about 1770 as forfeited property
used to secure a debt owed Wash-
ington by his profligate friend
and neighbor John Posey. Listed
as a “ferryman” managing a
cross-Potomac boat service
owned by his former owner,
Posey was probably about 16
when he came to Mount Vernon,
Washington’s Virginia estate,
which included five farms. The
most famous was Mansion House
Farm, known today simply as
Mount Vernon. More than 300
captive people labored there as
both skilled and unskilled work-
ers. Most were owned by the
estate of Martha Washington’s
first husband, Daniel Parke Cus-
tis, who had died two years be-
fore she married Washington. By
the time of his own death in 1799,
Washington personally owned
just over 50 human beings.
As president, Washington
moved to New York City, then the
federal capital, bringing a small
contingent of enslaved people as
household and livery staff. When
the capital moved to Philadel-
phia, Washington, unsatisfied
with hired cooks, added Posey to
the group.
Known until 2018 only as Her-
cules, or as “Uncle Harkless” — a
diminishing nickname that sure-
ly rankled — Posey would have
directed the meal that was served
on that Thanksgiving holiday.
Working in the kitchen of a
fine household — much less a
presidential one — would not
have been easy. Meals were elabo-
rate, multicourse affairs with an
confectioner; Polly Haine, famed
for her pepper pot stand in the
public market; Benjamin John-
son, an oysterman; numerous
cake sellers and bread bakers;
and, for a time, Hemings, who
lived across the street from the
president’s house.
Why Posey didn’t escape into
the world of free Black Philadel-
phia has puzzled scholars for
decades. When he finally self-
emancipated, it was from Mount
Vernon, on the president’s 65th
birthday in 1797. He was seen
once more in 1801, after Washing-
ton had died and freed him and
the others he owned in his will.
When New York Mayor Richard
Varick offered to apprehend
Posey for Mrs. Washington, she
declined, claiming she had
“found a white cook who answers
just as well.” The truth was that
Posey was a free man three times
over: having remained in Phila-
delphia more than six months; by
virtue of Washington’s will; and
by his own agency.
In New York, Posey’s skill as a
chef allowed him to build a life in
a thriving free Black community.
He lived there, working as a cook,
until his death in 1812.
Nothing is known of the meals
Posey cooked as a free man, but
even if there were, it would be his
triumphs in the presidential
kitchen for which he would be
remembered, especially those ac-
companying Washington’s most
sweeping proclamations, such as
his 1795 day of thanksgiving.
More than 200 years later, we
are trying to square the heroic
myths of America’s founding
with the truths about its creators,
who enjoyed and profited from
the enslavement of African
Americans such as Posey, who
cooked feasts praising the idea of
liberty while his own hands were
shackled. It would be a hal-
f-century after Posey’s death be-
fore President Abraham Lincoln’s
Emancipation Proclamation
would change that equation for
those like him. The same year,
1863, Thanksgiving became a
regular national observance by
Lincoln’s hand.
[email protected]Ganeshram is executive director of
the Westport Museum for History &
Culture and author of a novel about
Hercules Posey, “The General’s
Cook.”In 1795, George Washington gave thanks for liberty. The feast’s chef had none.
EASTMAN JOHNSON/PHOTO BY GAVIN ASHWORTH/MOUNT VERNON
Eastman Johnson’s painting “Washington’s Kitchen, Mount Vernon,” from 1864. Hercules Posey worked as the chef for “the General.”- Best warranties in the industry
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