cravedfw

Long before Julia Child, James Beard or Anthony Bourdain, Mary Randolph helped define American cuisine.

A Virginia-born member of a plantation-owning and slave-holding family, Randolph had prominent connections. For instance, according to Michigan State University’s Feeding America blog, her brother was married to Martha Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s daughter. But though Randolph’s life was largely like those of many other young women from plantation-owning familes—privately educated for wifehood, married at 18, having eight children in her lifetime—one of her interests had an outsize impact on broader American society. Randolph’s knowledge of how to party led her to write the first cookbook published in America. Continue reading →