Enslaved Chef Created Mac and Cheese, Thomas Jefferson Gets Credit For It

Chef James Hemings was the first American classically trained in French cuisine. He is the founder of Mac and Cheese, but his owner, Thomas Jefferson, took the credit for it. Photo via Twitter

*Did you know that an enslaved chef named James Hemings created Mac and cheese but Thomas Jefferson, third president of the U.S., often gets credit for it? 

The story, passed down through the generations, goes that while traveling in Europe in the late 1700s prior to becoming president, Jefferson first tried a European version of macaroni pasta and cheese. He brought the recipe back when he returned to Virginia. But what is left out of that lore is that Jefferson was traveling with a slave who was his chef, and it was Hemings who came up with a version of mac and cheese for Americans’ taste. But Jefferson and his wife, Martha, took the credit.