Today is Crème Brûlée Day — and officially the LAST of the July food holidays affiliated with what I've started to refer to as #JamesHemingsJuly: my annual reclaiming of this month for Chef James Hemings, because so many of its food holidays trace straight back to dishes he introduced to America — yet almost never get to credit him.
Did you know that at their core, crème brûlée and classic vanilla ice cream are essentially the same dish? Classic vanilla ice cream as in the style that is based on the very first known / recorded vanilla ice cream recipe in America — a la what I shared in last week’s Vanilla Ice Cream Day post — the one penned by Thomas Jefferson but developed bye perfected by (and made a “million times” miraculously without any modern equipment) by Chef James Hemings (b. 1765) — for Jefferson and those he wanted to impress at his elaborate dining events -
Anyway, yes — : they each share the ‘same custard base: good quality cream, lots of egg yolks, sugar, and a whole vanilla bean:
Freeze it and mould it, and you get a version of vanilla ice cream that is basically the very recipe James Hemings introduced to America via Jefferson's many hospitality tables (across multiple states: VA, PA, NYC…).
Chill the custard a bit and torch the top — and voilà! — you get crème brûlée!
Either a creamy, icy cold, yet calming confection — or a warm hug in a ramekin dish with a thin, crispy caramelized top layer you crack through to access the comfortingly sweet vanilla creaminess beneath. The shared soul of both is that rich, vanilla-flavored French custard James mastered in Paris and brought home to America…
This past Vanilla Ice Cream Day I scooped up something super special — and it's available for you to access instantly…:
🍨The Vanilla Ice Cream Day VIP Vault — Contains:
the first vanilla ice cream recipe 🍨 ever recorded in 🇺🇸 American history (written by Jefferson's hand, but created from James' applied knowledge and ingenuity)
highlights from a video demo 🎥 of Chef Ashbell McElveen making James Hemings' vanilla ice cream 🍦
storytelling notes on the recipe 📜 for added insight and to help you make your own!
a treasure trove of insight on the one surviving document that James Hemings wrote himself ✍🏽
hidden history behind how once nearly unattainable vanilla at long last became more accessible to consumers the world over.
👆🏽ALL Yours at NO COST — the win-win value exchange is to drop your name & email to help my community grow and the info you requested opens right away in a new window (not via email delivery👇🏾)
The book: "Thomas Jefferson's Crème Brûlée: How a Founding Father and His Slave James Hemings Introduced French Cuisine to America" (2012), by Thomas Craughwell, was the first commercially published book to put James Hemings' full name and identity as Jefferson's chef on the cover.
Of all the dishes James is credited with perfecting and introducing – why is it that only crème brûlée cameo'ed on the cover? It's quite clear to me: of the handful of recipes indisputably attributed to James — mac and cheese, French fries, ice cream, all once-elite, now everyday — it's the one that looks and sounds the most "Frenchified," accent marks and all – and perfectly conveys the book's thesis: fine French dining reached America through Jefferson's tables via James' ingenuity nearly two centuries before Julia Child…
Before You Go, A Few More Timely Things to Know:
🍦 IT’S STILL #JamesHemingsJuly!🎂 🧑🏽🍳 🍝🍟 🍨🍦🍮
…. Find out WHY I started calling this month JAMES HEMINGS’ JULY → And check out the JAMES HEMINGS HUB → which houses my whole James Hemings content collection in one place.
*********And REMEMBER: 🇺🇸 July 4th 🎆 only marked the start — the official, formalized spark. 🧨 Commemorate & celebrate America's 250th and its many milestones with Revolutionary Food & Drink… Much of which is connected to James’ legacy…
LASTLY FOR NOW BUT MOST CERTAINLY NOT LEAST!…
The work I do I call Applied Culinary History:
Products, Places, Persons, Platforms — all have untold, engaging stories. I help them discover and tell them insightfully, from well-informed and often inspired positions.
By reconnecting the past with the present, I provide the much-needed and almost always missing context that leads to better decisions and better results — instead of the 'luck' this entire industry seems to bank on. Intel that informs and can transform menu design, dishes and drinks offered, how they're described.
🍽️ Work With Me — TFG (The Food Griot) aka Tonya Hopkins | CLICK LINK BELOW ⬇️ TO CONNECT 👇🏾