There Was No American Regional Cuisine Until One ‘Virginia Housewife’ Thought to Compile a Diverse Collection of Recipes

Mary Randolph, an in-law of the Jefferson family who was influenced by enslaved cooks and traditions of European immigrants, didn’t change Southern cooking with her 1824 cookbook … she originated it

Michael W. Twitty

Photographs by Scott Suchman

Summer 2026

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There was no instruction manual for Mary Randolph to refer to during the 13 years she spent running a Richmond, Virginia, boardinghouse. A wife, mother and entrepreneur in the early 1800s, she had to figure out the most efficient ways to complete her many tasks in the kitchen. Once she discovered what worked, Randolph compiled her refined cooking techniques and recipes into 1824’s The Virginia House-Wife, widely recognized as the seminal Southern cookbook.

Randolph’s work inevitably represents the melding of traditions without which Southern cooking could not be what it is today. The book’s nearly 500 recipes—many originating in plantation kitchens—not only speak to the South’s unique culinary heritage but also tell the story of trans-Atlantic nations. 

Born in 1762 on her family’s plantation in what is known today as the “Black Belt” of Virginia, where some 50 to 70 percent of the population were of African descent, Randolph was exposed to diverse cuisines early on. The enslaved cooks who prepared meals for her family upheld West African cooking traditions, using the ingredients that were most similar to those of their homeland. When visiting her brother, Thomas, and his wife, Martha (Thomas Jefferson’s daughter), at Monticello, Randolph would likely have enjoyed the cuisine prepared by enslaved cooks Edith Fossett and Fanny Hern, who had been taught by White House culinarian Honoré Julien. At Monticello, the women continued the work of formerly enslaved, French-trained master chef James Hemings, who became the first to prepare macaroni and cheese in the United States; The Virginia House-Wife is said to be the first U.S. cookbook to include a recipe for it.

The enslaved Africans and free people of color working around Randolph were central in introducing her to the foods and flavors that became the core of Southern cuisine. West Africans were fond of layered, spicy, one-pot stews with various starches; deep-fried proteins; vegetables and fritters; grilled and barbecued meats, and braised leafy greens. They used peppery spices to amplify or temper the key ingredients allowed them. For example, a muddy-flavored catfish became pleasant under the influence of turmeric, ginger and cayenne pepper. 

Randolph drew on other traditions too, incorporating oysters, wild game such as rabbit, and Indigenous crops like squash and pumpkin into her recipes. She included popular British dishes, such as plum pudding, as well as Spanish “gaspacho”; gumbo, described as a West Indian dish; East Indian curry; Scottish collops of veal; and French macarons, offering a glimpse at Virginia’s distinct demographics. 

Having closed her boardinghouse in 1820, Randolph was retired and caring for her ailing son when she decided to collect and publish her expertise for a new generation of homemakers. “The difficulties I encountered when I first entered on the duties of a housekeeping life, from the want of books sufficiently clear and concise ... compelled me to study the subject,” Randolph wrote. Her instructions also standardized recipes using “proper weights and measures,” reducing waste. “For when the ingredients employed were given in just proportions,” she wrote, “the article made was always equally good.” 

Some recipes had to be modified. She adapted British food staples made from cool weather grains to her native environment, substituting maize and creating authentic American fare. Cornbread and hominy replaced quick breads and porridge. Chicken, hogs, catfish and shad were consumed far more than beef and lamb. African dishes were modified to Western constraints, and they all learned from Native Americans who’d mastered how to best use the resources of the land. Other expensive and sometimes difficult-to-find groceries were imported from across the Atlantic. Randolph’s cacophony of recipes includes beers, preserves, breads and desserts.

You won’t find lists of ingredients followed by numbered instructions—the familiar format of today’s recipes. Randolph wrote as though she were speaking to the reader, and some might also hear the voices of enslaved cooks. Although they were denied an education or publishing opportunities of their own, the Black chefs who influenced Randolph left their imprint on the book. Words with West African origins, like “ochra,” are peppered throughout. Yet it never explicitly credits those men and women of African descent. 

Although she came from a notable slaveholding family, Randolph understood that her business success was dependent on the Black Virginians who had been integrating foodways from different lands since 1619, when the first enslaved Africans arrived. On paper, Randolph emphasized method and order. In reality, she allowed her cooks a modicum of freedom in the kitchen they shared.

The book was a huge success for the era, republished 19 times before the Civil War, and it spawned similar efforts from other chefs, including The Carolina Housewife, Domestic Cookery and Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen. Randolph wrote that “an extensive circulation” of her recipes would be satisfying. “Should they prove serviceable to the young, inexperienced housekeeper, it will add greatly to that gratification.” Some 200 years later, new editions of The Virginia House-Wife are still being printed. 

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Five Chefs Who Changed the Way We Eat

Even if you never ate their food, their influence has been a key ingredient in American cuisine

by Taras Grescoe

James Beard: Long before the Food Network turned chefs into celebrities, Beard brought the first cooking show to national TV, with “I Love to Eat” in 1946. Known for his eccentric persona, Beard published 26 books, championed everything from sloppy Joes to lobster Newburg and established a culinary brand (a cooking school, a foundation, annual awards) that confers enduring gravitas on U.S. cookery.

Leah Chase: In the 1960s, Chase turned her in-laws’ restaurant, Dooky Chase’s in New Orleans’ Tremé district, into a temple of Creole cuisine. Jim Crow laws still banned Black diners from French Quarter restaurants, so Chase fed leading lights of the civil rights movement. (James Baldwin favored her gumbo.) Remarkably influential, she spread the gospel of shrimp Clemenceau and peach cobbler in cookbooks and on TV. 

Julia Child: Child’s 1961 Mastering the Art of French Cooking was the first cookbook to de­mystify béchamel and roux for home cooks. After a wartime stint for U.S. intelligence, Child followed her husband to Paris and graduated from Le Cordon Bleu culinary school. Her live public TV show, “The French Chef,” made her a beloved celebrity for her uncompromising approach to cassoulet and coq au vin. 

Alice Waters: The enduring buzz around farm-to-table cooking began with New Jersey-born Waters, who taught Americans to follow the seasons, as she’d seen Europeans do. After studying at the Sorbonne, Waters opened her organic restaurant, Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California, in 1971. In the 1990s, she pioneered the Edible Schoolyard, which teaches middle and high school students to grow and cook organic produce. 

Sean Sherman: In 2007, while living in a Mexican fishing village, Sherman met nearby Huichol people who’d never stopped using traditional ingredients. An Oglala Lakota who grew up in South Dakota, Sherman was inspired to study what his people ate before European contact. Starting small in 2015 with a food truck in Minneapolis, he went on to write The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen (2017), and his Minneapolis restaurant, Owamni, has won awards for its precolonial cuisine. He’s part of a wave of chefs charting the culinary future. 

Michael W. Twitty | | Read More

Michael W. Twitty is a culinary historian and food writer who won two James Beard Awards for his 2017 book The Cooking Gene.

Scott Suchman | | Read More

Scott Suchman is a Washington, D.C.-based food, portrait and travel photographer.