Recipes
Explore our recipes and learn more about food culture at Mount Vernon.
George and Martha Washington welcomed thousands of guests to Mount Vernon in the more than forty years that they lived here. Most of their visitors stayed for meals, enjoying the Washingtons’ famous hospitality and the plentiful food they provided.
A number of sources provide insight into meals at Mount Vernon, including some of George Washington's favorite food and drinks.
George Washington often described his home as a "well-resorted tavern." The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association continued this tradition when they assumed operations in 1853.
The Washingtons' relied on a group of enslaved cooks, butlers, and waiters to serve their guests.
Washington preferred his hoecakes "swimming in butter and honey." One guest surmised that having the hoecakes softened with honey and butter made it easier for Washington to chew his breakfast.
George Washington had an affinity for this fortified wine, produced on the Portuguese island of Madeira in the eastern Atlantic.
George Washington’s fondness for Madeira wine is well known. Less commonly recognized is his love of good beer.
Among Martha Washington's surviving papers is a recipe written out by her granddaughter Martha Parke Custis, which calls for 40 eggs worked into four pounds of butter, four pounds of sugar, five pounds of flour, and an equal quantity of fruit.