Mary Randolph

Mary Randolph (August 9, 1762 – January 23, 1828) was a Southern American cook and writer, known for writing The Virginia House-Wife; Or, Methodical Cook, one of the most influential housekeeping and cook books of the 19th century. Many of the recipes used local Virginia ingredients including Tanacetum vulgare virginia pudding, pickled nasturtiums and desserts with the native gooseberry. She was the first person known to be buried at what would become known as Arlington National Cemetery.

Early life

Mary Randolph was born on August 9, 1762, at Ampthill Plantation in Chesterfield County, Virginia. Her parents were Thomas Mann Randolph Sr. (1741–1794) and Anne Cary Randolph (1745–1789). The extended Randolph family was one of the richest and most political significant families in 18th century Virginia.

Mary's father was orphaned at a young age and raised by Thomas Jefferson's parents who were distant cousins. Her father also served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Revolutionary conventions of 1775 and 1776, and the Virginia state legislature.

Mary Randolph was the oldest of Thomas and Anne's 13 children. and another, Harriet, married Richard Shippey Hackley who became US Consul and they lived in Cadiz, Spain. She was probably the source of the Spanish recipes in Randolph's cookbook. Her sister, Ann Cary "Nancy" Randolph, was the wife of Gouverneur Morris and mother of Gouverneur Morris Jr. Ann figured in a scandal involving her brother-in-law and distant cousin, Richard Randolph of Bizarre, in which he was accused of "feloniously murdering a child said to be borne of Nancy [Ann] Randolph."

Randolph grew up at Tuckahoe Plantation in Goochland County, Virginia. The Randolphs were known to hire professional tutors to teach their children. Mary would likely have learned reading, writing, and arithmetic in addition to domestic skills.

Marriage

In December 1780, 18-year-old Mary Randolph married her first cousin once removed, David Meade Randolph (1760–1830), a Revolutionary War officer and tobacco planter. Over the course of their marriage, Mary and David had eight children, four of whom survived to adulthood.

Around 1795 President George Washington appointed David Randolph the U.S. Marshal of Virginia

In May 1815, Harriott Pinckney Horry spent a few days at the Randolph's boardinghouse and described Randolph's refrigerator in her journal. Inside a 4 by 3 1/2 foot box there was another box four inches smaller. The space between the two was packed with powdered charcoal and the refrigerator was filled with ice daily to cool butter, meat and other foods. In the 1825 2nd edition of her cookbook, Randolph included sketches for a refrigerator and bath tub. Years later an author claimed (falsely) that Randolph invented the refrigerator and that her design was stolen and patented by a Yankee who stayed in her boardinghouse. and resulted from Randolph's "practical experience as keeper of a large establishment, and perhaps in the hope of further augmenting the family income." The Virginia House-Wife is considered the first regional American cookbook.

Later years Marker over the grave of Mary Randolph at Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, at Arlington National Cemetery. Randolph spent the last years of her life caring for her son Burwell Starke Randolph, who had been disabled while serving in the Navy. at the home of her cousin George Washington Parke Custis, stepgrandson of George Washington and father of Mary Custis, wife of Robert E. Lee.

In a 2014 essay for National Geographic, restaurateur José Andrés cited Mary Randolph as an influence. Andrés serves Randolph's gazpacho at his America Eats Tavern and believes that Randolph's "Gazpacho recipe demonstrates just how far back the notion of this country as a cultural melting pot goes."

Honors

In 2009 Randolph was posthumously honored as one of the Library of Virginia's "Virginia Women in History". In 1999, the state of Virginia erected a historical marker in her honor near the site of her birth in Chesterfield County.