The Dish: This chef shaped American cuisine. Do you know his name?

Chef Joe Burton had traveled from Baltimore to Charleston, South Carolina, to eat at one of its most famous restaurants, run by an acclaimed White chef. On the menu was a macaroni and cheese dish attributed to founding father, foodie and President Thomas Jefferson, sometimes credited with popularizing America’s favorite pasta dish.

Only later did it occur to Burton, the erasure. “The credit was given to Thomas Jefferson,” Burton said.

As Americans prepare to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence — authored by Jefferson — it’s an apt time to revisit the legacy and contributions of the people who made the country possible. That includes those who did the cooking. In reality, there’s no evidence the third U.S. president ever cooked macaroni and cheese himself. He relied on his enslaved chef, James Hemings, who trained for years in France and died a free man in Baltimore.

It’s James Hemings’ macaroni.

“James Hemings has such an important and under-recognized place in American cuisine,” said Nancy Siegel, a Towson University professor and author of “Political Appetites: The Power of Food in Revolutionary America.” If Jefferson was America’s first influencer, Siegel said, Hemings made that possible. He was arguably the nation’s first celebrity chef, cooking for the president, diplomats and guests from around the world, who raved about his food.

Burton said he first learned about Hemings from reading the work of food writer Michael Twitty, who has done extensive research on the impact of enslaved and free Black chefs on the creation of Southern cuisine. “My mind was blown,” said Burton, co-owner of Rooted Rotisserie restaurant in West Baltimore.

Twitty and other historians have worked to piece together a narrative of Hemings’ life from the fragments available and glimpses in Jefferson’s vast correspondence. “Outside of Jefferson’s gaze is really shadowy,” Twitty said.

Like so many enslaved people, Hemings lived a life both close to power and cruelly apart from it. While he was born into bondage, he was the son of Jefferson’s father-in-law. His sister, Sally, became the mother of Jefferson’s children. He arrived as a child to Monticello, Jefferson’s vast Virginia plantation, around 1774.

At just 19, James Hemings was living in Paris, where Jefferson served as Minister of France. He studied cooking under restaurateur Monsieur Combeaux and pastry in the household of the Prince de Condé. He made a salary and roamed the local markets. Slavery was illegal in France, and Hemings could have petitioned for his freedom abroad. Yet he and Sally both came home to Virginia as the French Revolution was just getting started.

Back in the U.S., Hemings continued to cook for Jefferson for several more years, shaping a cuisine that blended Virginian and French traditions. There was roast capon stuffed with salty Virginia ham, vanilla ice cream cloaked in choux pastry and fluffy merengues floating in vanilla custard. And there was likely macaroni and cheese, though Siegel notes the dish was already popular in English cookbooks before Hemings traveled to France.

To Burton, a Black, French-trained chef who says he struggled for years to find his own voice in the kitchen, Hemings’ life has profound resonances. “You think of high-end French cooking, you don’t think of a Black chef,” he said. “When, lo and behold, a Black guy brought all these things here.”

Burton uses inspiration from Hemings’ multicultural approach to food at his own Hollins Market eatery. He took a technique for classic French duck confit that he learned while working for Baltimore’s Foreman Wolf restaurant group, adding his own gumbo for an unexpected twist. The dish won the enthusiastic praise of TikTok influencer Keith Lee, who featured it on his platform.

Burton’s wife and business partner, Amanda, sees parallels in Hemings’ journey and her own husband’s trajectory, “having to claw his way up” through professional kitchens.

For all his freedom in the kitchen, Hemings remained enslaved. In 1793, Jefferson wrote that he agreed to grant the chef his freedom — on one condition. Hemings had to return to Monticello and train his own replacement in the kitchen. He ended up teaching his brother Peter to take over.

By 1801, Hemings had found his way to Baltimore, where he worked as a free man. In some ways, the city made sense: It was a foodie town, home to a thriving culinary scene led primarily by Black caterers. Yet away from his family in Virginia, Twitty thinks Hemings likely struggled to find a sense of belonging. He had a first-class education and skills that perhaps no one else in the U.S. did, but was still considered less than because of his race.

Correspondence shows that Jefferson — using a prominent hotel operator in Baltimore as an intermediary — entreated Hemings to come work for him at the White House after he was elected president. Records show that Hemings, in response, requested Jefferson reach out to him directly.

“James did something that was powerful and cool,” Twitty said. He dared to tell the president: “You’re going to either respect me or I’m gone.”

Jefferson didn’t follow through. The same year, Hemings reportedly died by suicide, with surviving correspondence suggesting he was drinking heavily around the time of his death. He was 36.

But his legacy lives on. Twitty recalled how, during an event at Monticello, he felt the presence of Hemings in an area he later discovered was the mansion’s former kitchen. “The ancestors are always here,” he said.

Today, at Burton’s own restaurant, the chef puts Hemings front and center. Burton calls his silky macaroni and cheese “trois fromage” out of homage to Hemings, the fluent French speaker. And by the entrance, above the bar, is a portrait of a Black chef that represents Hemings.

“He’d be happy to hear us talking about him,” Amanda said.