Exhibitions & Objects

Special Exhibitions

Hoecakes & Hospitality: Cooking with Martha Washington
February 18, 2012 through August 11, 2013
The Donald W. Reynolds Museum’s F.M. Kirby Foundation Gallery

 Step behind the scenes to explore how foods were prepared and presented at 18th-century Mount Vernon. Before appearing in the dining rooms, crispy hoecakes, smoked hams, frozen ice creams, and other foods required the work of gardeners, housekeepers, enslaved cooks, butlers, and waiters—all under Martha Washington’s careful supervision. Follow food from farm or wharf to kitchen hearth to dinner plate. See recipes and cookbooks that Mrs. Washington treasured, pots that simmered in her kitchen, and fine tablewares that made Mount Vernon’s dining rooms fit for a president.

More than just a feast for the eyes, the exhibition is also a treat for all of the senses. As you wander through the galleries, admire the objects and imagine the flavors, you’ll be also treated to the enticing smells of cinnamon, coffee, herbs, and warm bread.

Visitors to the new Hoecakes & Hospitality: Cooking with Martha Washington exhibition will receive a recipe card that includes George Washington’s original hoecake recipe and a modern adaptation of the recipe that you can cook at home! Hoecakes & Hospitality: Cooking with Martha Washington is included in Estate admission.

Featured object: The Washingtons ordered this silver chocolate pot for John Parke Custis (Jacky), Martha Washington's son from her first marriage. The chocolate pot was part of an extensive silver service given to Jacky and his wife Eleanor Calvert upon their marriage in 1774.

To learn more about the exhibition click here.

Permanent Collection

While this year’s special exhibition is designed to spotlight food culture at Mount Vernon, the Estate and the Donald W. Reynolds Museum & Education Center also regularly display objects and exhibits that reveal aspects of food culture at Mount Vernon.

In the Museum, you can admire a table set with pieces of the Washingtons’ china, replicating the dining room of his presidential residence in Philadelphia, as well as interesting objects like a wine cooler and a table set for tea service with original Windsor chairs, evoking the spirit of hospitality that guests enjoyed on the Mansion's piazza.

The Education Center spotlights Washington's role as a pioneering farmer through interactive displays that discuss his use of innovative techniques and technologies, such as crop rotation.

Inside the Mansion, the large dining room is re-furnished seasonally to reflect how ingredients and recipes changed over the course of the year. Take a peek inside the kitchen to see where thousands of meals were prepared each year to accommodate the Washingtons and their steady stream of houseguests.

Outbuildings such as the smokehouse and salt house also offer glimpses of culinary culture at an 18th-century estate.

The Hoecakes & Hospitality: Cooking with Martha Washington exhibition is made possible through the generous support of:

•    The Life Guard Society of Historic Mount Vernon

•    Dr. Scholl Foundation

•    Kathryn C. Vecellio

•    Design Cuisine

•    and other generous benefactors