By: Tonya Hopkins, aka “The Food Griot”…
By noticing and heralding their shared birthday—an observation I’d never seen conveyed before—I aim to usher in a long-overdue reflection on the parallels in their food-focused lives, which mirror the many paradoxes and powerful ways in which food simultaneously transcends and transforms culture, while shaping national identity.
One, a founding politician of colonial privilege; the other, an acclaimed chef with roots in Black rural resilience. Together, their stories reveal Virginia’s complex and foundational role as the anchor of American cuisine—from its early plantation kitchens to the highest echelons of fine dining nationwide.
That’s right—two of Virginia’s most iconic food figures (who were worlds apart, despite the close geographic proximity of their upbringings) share the same birthday: April 13. Thomas Jefferson (b. 1743) and Chef Edna Lewis (b. 1916) were born just a few miles from each other—separated by centuries, united by enduring legacies.
One, a patriarch of the owner-class of planters; the other, a matriarch embodying the freedom at long last granted after generations of ancestors who were owned. Jefferson used food as a form of diplomacy and distinction, importing tastes to impress and persuade. Lewis elevated the traditions of rural Black and Southern cookery to their rightful place in America’s culinary canon. It’s a strikingly cosmic culinary coincidence that Virginia’s arguably most famous foodies share a birthday. And satisfyingly, there’s even more flavor layered into the narrative…...
Chef James Hemings (b. 1765), the enslaved, classically trained chef who was owned by and worked under Jefferson—and who helped profoundly shape the development of American cuisine and fine dining from Jefferson’s many tables in multiple states and across the Atlantic—is the fascinating bridge between these two icons.
Too often, conventional food history narratives credit Jefferson alone, overlooking the skilled hands and brilliant mind of Hemings, whose name was barely known to the public until recent years. If not for the work that Ashbell McElveen, Karma Martell, and I did to establish the James Hemings Society over a decade ago, his story might still be buried further beneath Jefferson’s shadow.
I’d first pieced the duality of ‘same born dates’ and timelines together while co-founding the James Hemings Society and, at the same time, researching and speaking (alongside Michael Twitty and Judith Jones) — my focus on Edna Lewis’s life work as an accomplished chef and cookbook author, that took flight and flourished in New York City, spanning the mid to late 20th century. Her culinary career—steeped in reverence, rigor, and regional pride—serves as a sizable slice from our multilayered, marbled cake of American food history.
To add yet another layer of frosting—and intrigue… since the birthdates of the enslaved were rarely recorded or passed down, it’s entirely possible that Hemings, too, could have been born on April 13th.
How cosmic would that be? …
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THIS LINK takes you back to the whole month calendar aerial view to explore more food & drink ‘holidays’
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A photo collage i created to convey the concept of the birthday date shared by both TJ and Chef Lewis… including photos of Mrs. Lewis celebrating her special day at the James Beard House once upon a time, seated to her left is her neice Nina Williams-Mbengue, board member of the Edna Lewis Foundation.
It’s peach cobbler day too FYI…