April 28 is James Monroe's Birthday - 5th President and a Virginian

Monroe was the third of the first five Presidents to die on the Fourth of July; John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died on that day five years earlier. Thousands of mourners followed his hearse up Broadway in Manhattan to the Gouverneur family vault in Marble Cemetery, while church bells tolled and guns fired at Fort Columbus. Monroe's body was later moved to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

James Monroe was born on April 28, 1758, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Monroe was the second of five children born to Spence and Elizabeth Jones Monroe, "small" planters who raised tobacco on their 600-acre farm. Initially educated at Parson Campbell's school in Westmoreland, Monroe studied at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, from 1774 until he enlisted in the Third Virginia Regiment in 1776.

James Monroe came to the presidency as one of the most qualified men ever to assume the office. Monroe's fifty years of public service began with his election to the Virginia General Assembly in 1782. Subsequently, Monroe served in the Confederation Congress and in the first United States Senate; was twice Minister to France, once to Britain and to Spain; served four one-year terms as Governor of Virginia; and became President James Madison's Secretary of State and Secretary of War during the War of 1812. Monroe's greatest achievement as a diplomat was the final negotiation of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

In 1799, James Monroe and his family moved into their Albemarle "cabin castle," adjacent to Jefferson's Monticello. For twenty-four years the Monroe family's home was the Albemarle County plantation Highland.

In 1799, James Monroe and his family moved into their Albemarle "cabin castle," adjacent to Jefferson's Monticello. For twenty-four years the Monroe family's home was the Albemarle County plantation Highland.

Elected President of the United States in 1816 and in 1820, James Monroe resolved long-standing grievances with the British, acquired Florida from the Spanish in 1819, and proclaimed the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. Somewhat optimistically labeled the "Era of Good Feelings," Monroe's administration was hampered by the economic depression brought on by the Panic of 1819 and by the debates over the Missouri Compromise that same year. Monroe supported the American Colonization Society, which established the nation of Liberia for freed blacks. Its capital was named Monrovia in his honor. Monroe himself was tom between his belief in the "evil of slavery" and his fear of the consequences of immediate abolition.

When his presidency ended on March 4, 1825, James Monroe resided at Monroe Hill, what is now included in the grounds of the University of Virginia. He had operated the family farm from 1788 to 1817, but sold it in the first year of his presidency to the new college. He served on the college's Board of Visitors under Jefferson and under the second rector James Madison, also a former president, almost until his death.

Monroe had racked up many debts during his years of public life. He sold off his Highland Plantation (now called Ashlawn-Highland. It is now owned by his alma mater, the College of William and Mary which has opened it to the public as an historic site.

Today, visitors can tour the fifth president's home, which was recently refurbished based on new research and inventory lists. Original and period French and American furniture, boxwood gardens, and a 535-acre working farm await visitors. Reconstructed using archaeology and a 1908 photograph, the slave quarters stands alongside two original outbuildings. Children especially enjoy the resident cows, sheep, chickens, and peacocks that complete the working farm atmosphere. Throughout the year there are many special events such as the Virginia Wine Festival, Ash Lawn Opera Festival, Plantation Days, and Christmas festivities.

April 2 is Jefferson's Real Birthday

Thomas Jefferson

Why is the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, who was born  at Shadwell in Albemarle county, Virginia on April 2,  now celebrated on April 13? The letters O.S. appearing after dates on Thomas Jefferson's tombstone stand for "Old Style. The Julian or Old Style calendar was in effect in England and her colonies until 1752, when the Gregorian or New Style calendar was adopted. This added eleven days to the current date to bring the calendar year into step with the astronomical year. Thus, the birthday of Jefferson, who was born on April 2 under the Old Style calendar, is now celebrated on April 13, the New Style date. The Gregorian or New Style calendar is still in use today.

Jefferson died, perhaps appropriately, on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. On June 24, 1826, Jefferson's physician was called to his bedside because of an illness, and his condition worsened until he lost consciousness on July 2. From then on, Jefferson slept fitfully, waking only to inquire whether it were yet the Fourth of July. Around noon on the fourth -- the Jubilee of Independence -- Jefferson died in bed at the age of eighty-three. Coincidentally, his friend, colleague, and co-signer of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams, died just hours later that day. Jefferson is buried in the family cemetery at Monticello.

After his death, a family member found a sketch prepared by Jefferson, containing instructions for his tombstone. Jefferson desired that his grave be marked by an obelisk inscribed with the three accomplishments for which he most wished to be remembered, "and not a word more."

It was Jefferson's wish that his tomb stone reflect the things that he had given the people, not the things that the people had given to him. It is for this reason that Thomas Jefferson's epitaph reads:

HERE WAS BURIED
THOMAS JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
OF THE
STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND FATHER OF THE  UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
BORN APRIL 2, 1743 O.S.
DIED JULY 4. 1826

Conspicuously missing is the fact that Jefferson held all of the higher offices of political service, including governor of Virginia, secretary of state, vice president, and, of course, third president of the United States.

Jefferson's legacy can be found all over Virginia. No other home in the United States more accurately reflects the personality of its owner than Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's architectural masterpiece and beloved mountaintop home. In 1923 the nonprofit Thomas Jefferson Foundation was formed for the purpose of acquiring and preserving Monticello. Since then, the Foundation has owned and operated Monticello with a dual mission of preservation and education. Today, the significance of Monticello is recognized internationally -- it is the only house in America on the World Heritage List, a United Nations compilation of treasures that must be preserved at any cost.

A home and working farm for nearly 300 years, Tuckahoe Plantation is the boyhood home of Thomas Jefferson. Tuckahoe is considered by architectural historians to have one of the most complete eighteenth century plantation layouts in North America. A beautiful example of the early Georgian Period, Tuckahoe still contains the rare outbuildings which were the office and schoolhouse where Thomas Jefferson began his education. Tuckahoe is the only early Randolph home still standing on its original site and contains outstanding interior paneling and embellishments. The rambling gardens of Tuckahoe draw visitors all times of year for their show of bloom from March through October

The original Grounds of the University of Virginia, including the Rotunda and the Lawn, were designed by Jefferson to be what he called an "Academical Village." The Academical Village includes a rectangular, terraced green space known as the Lawn; two parallel rows of buildings, the Pavilions, connected by colonnaded walkways and student rooms; and the Rotunda, which closes off the north end of the Lawn. The Rotunda, a half-scale interpretation of the Pantheon in Rome, is the signature landmark of the University and its Dome Room originally housed the University library. The Pavilions are in the Federal style and no two are alike.

The Capitol was designed by Thomas Jefferson and first occupied in 1788 by Virginia's General Assembly, America's oldest English-speaking legislature. During the Civil War, the Confederate Congress also met here. The east (House) and west (Senate) wings were added between 1904-1906. The Capitol has reopened after a $104.5 million restoration and expansion project. Free one-hour guided tours are offered daily, including some holidays. Visitors also may tour on their own. Impressive interior designs and colors from 1910 have been replicated in the Rotunda, House and Senate chambers.

The Barboursville ruins was preserved as a ruin after its destruction by fire on December 25, 1884. Barboursville was one of the largest and finest residences in the region. The only building in Orange County known to have been designed by Thomas Jefferson, Barboursville was constructed between 1814-1822 for Jefferson's friend James Barbour, who served as governor of Virginia, U.S. senator and secretary of war. A brick Flemish-bond mansion with a hipped roof, Barboursville stood two stories high over an English basement. Today the estate is run as a vineyard.

Natural Bridge, in Rockbridge County, Virginia, is a geological formation in which Cedar Creek, a small tributary of the James River, carved out a gorge in the mountainous limestone terrain, forming a natural arch 215 ft  high with a span of 90 ft. It consists of horizontal limestone strata, and is the remains of the roof of a cave or tunnel through which the creek once flowed. Thomas Jefferson purchased 157 acres of land including the Natural Bridge from King George III of England for 20 shillings in 1774. He called it "the most Sublime of nature's works". Jefferson built a two-room log cabin, with one room reserved for guests, beginning its use as a retreat. While President, in 1802, he surveyed the place with his own hands. Natural Bridge was one of the wonders of the new world that Europeans visited during the 18th and 19th centuries. Natural Bridge has been designated a Virginia Historic Landmark and a National Historic Landmark and today is a major tourist attraction.  

These are just some of Jefferson's legacy and accomplishments that happen to be close to our home in Charlottesville. More than a mere renaissance man, Jefferson may actually have been a new kind of man. He was fluent in five languages and able to read two others. He wrote, over the course of his life, over sixteen thousand letters. He was acquainted with nearly every influential person in America, and a great many in Europe as well. He was a lawyer, agronomist, musician, scientist, philosopher, author, architect, inventor, and statesman. Though he never set foot outside of the American continent before adulthood, he acquired an education that rivaled the finest to be attained in Europe. He was clearly the foremost American son of the Enlightenment.

James Madison

James Madison

Today, March 16, is James Madison's birthday. It's a good day to take a moment to think about the 4th President, his home at Monteplier and the Museum dedicated to him.

 Just about 30 minutes from Charlottesville, Montpelier is the lifelong home of James Madison, Father of the Constitution, architect of the Bill of Rights, and 4th president of the United States. Nestled in the rolling foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Montpelier is located in the heart of Virginia's wine country on Route 20, four miles south of Orange, Virginia. It was here at Montpelier where James Madison first imagined the Constitution, spending six months in his upstairs library researching governments, organizing his thoughts into what he believed were the ideal principles for a representative democracy. Madison’s ideas would become the “Virginia Plan,” and later the framework for the Constitution.

Now that the home's architectural restoration is complete, visitors can see the progress of rediscovering James and Dolley Madison through the "Presidential Detective Story" with guided house tours, as well as a myriad of special "behind the scenes" experiences. You can also stroll the garden and forest and take in the galleries, hands-on activities, and many other attractions on the estate's 2,650 acres. Montpelier is a National Trust for Historic Preservation site administered by The Montpelier Foundation.

 Not far from Montpelier, the James Madison Museum is located in Orange, Virginia. There are display exhibits that allow the guest to discover the life and works of James Madison, his first cousin Zachary Taylor, and friend James Monroe. They have the original documents of Virginia's ratification of the United States Constitution, Madison's campeachy chair, one of Dolley Madison's large oval mirrors, the lovely carved pipe Zachary Taylor gave his wife, a punch bowl owned by James Monroe featuring hand-painted portraits of his daughters and wife, and numerous other artifacts. There is also a wing with a Model T, a 1733 cube house, numerous farming implements and vehicle and an exhibit for the forgotten African-American heroes of our founding history.

Orange County celebrated the 262nd birthday of the Father of the Constitution on the grounds of his lifelong home today. Admission was free all day. Birthday acknowledgements included a wreath-laying ceremony in the Madison family cemetery by the U.S. Marines by order of President Obama. Re-enactors portraying James and Dolley Madison were present. If you missed it this year, plan ahead for next year.

A Cup of Hot Chocolate, S’good for What Ails Ya, Part 2

The first Englishmen to encounter chocolate were pirates, or, more politely, privateers, commissioned by the English monarch to prey on Spanish vessels. They didn't know what it was at first. On at least one occasion in the 1500s, English privateers burned a shipload of valuable cacao seeds, having no idea what the ugly little brown things were worth. Chocolate reached England in the middle of the seventeenth century, just as two other exotic beverages—coffee and tea—were making their debut.

It was no coincidence that these beverages were all consumed hot and sweet. “Hot melts sugar,” says Jim Gay. He’s Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Foodways journeyman cook and an authority on the history and manufacture of chocolate. “All these beverages were sweetened with cane sugar. The British didn’t start growing sugar on Barbados until the 1640s. First comes sugar, then comes chocolate and coffee and tea . . . all of them introduced to the British in the late 1640s.”

The first known English recipe for chocolate called for sugar, long red pepper, cloves, aniseed, almonds, nuts, orange flower water, and, of course, cacao. “The hotter it is drunk, the better it is,” said the recipe’s author in 1652. Unaware of the Aztec custom of drinking it cool, the recipe said that “being cold it may doe harm.”

Chocolate was usually sold ground and pressed into cakes wrapped in paper. In England, the cakes were small, two or four ounces, because of the high cost of the product. In America where it was cheaper, the one-pound size was more common. By the start of the eighteenth century, the British were drinking chocolate with water and brandy, with milk, and with port or sherry. All three versions used sugar and spices and were frothed with a chocolate mill.

Once it snatched Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655, England had its own island with flourishing cacao plantations. Chocolate became widely available, although still expensive. Making it more so were the import duties levied on all chocolate brought into England. In the Atlantic colonies, however, the duties were lower, putting the cost of the beverage within reach of more pocketbooks. Perhaps that explains why, at the time of the Revolutionary War, there was one commercial chocolate maker in Britain and nearly seventy in the thirteen colonies.

Some historians think that chocolate drinking spread from England to its North American colonies, but it seems more likely that it came directly in ships that plied the trade routes from the West Indies to the major colonial ports of Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Newport, Rhode Island. Whatever the route, chocolate arrived in English North America at about the same time it arrived in England. It was available as chocolate nuts, as shells, and in processed “chocolate cakes,” lumps of grated powder and sugar ready to be stirred into boiling water, mixed with whatever ingredients one preferred, and frothed with the little hand mill.Those who bought the cacao seed had to roast and grind the chocolate themselves or, more likely, have their servants or slaves do the tedious job. Those who, like Martha Washington, purchased the cacao shells, steeped them in hot water to make a thin chocolaty drink that was easier on the stomach than oily chocolate.

A Cup of Hot Chocolate, S’good for What Ails Ya, Part 1

Virginia Breakfast Gift Box

Winter Cheer

We are currently selling Steamer Traditional and White Chocolate Hot Cocoa in gift boxes and gift baskets. Steamer Cocoa's award winning recipe is an indulgent and rich combination of quality ingredients. The can of Traditional Hot Cocoa comes with an awesome old fashioned picture of a horse and carriage. The can of the White Chocolate Flavor comes with a gorgeous picture of ice skaters on a frozen pond. Brings back memories of long ago. The history of hot cocoa is an interesting one as told in an article in the Winter, 2012 edition of a popular history magazine published by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation called "A Cup of Hot Chocolate, S'Good for What Ails Ya. 

Conquistador Girolamo Benzoni, one of the first to taste the spicy Aztec beverage called cacahuatl, wrote, “It seemed more a drink for pigs than a drink for humanity. I was in this country for more than a year and never wanted to taste it, and whenever I passed a settlement, some Indian would offer me a drink of it and would be amazed when I would not accept, going away laughing. But then, as there was a shortage of wine. . . .” Benzoni, a sojourner in Mexico, was forced to relent. The taste he found “somewhat bitter” and noted “it satisfies and refreshes the body but does not inebriate.”

The drink had come to the Aztecs from their predecessors, the Mayas, and had originated with their predecessors, the Olmecs, who had domesticated the cacao tree three thousand years before. Made from the cacao seed, the drink was said to possess mystical properties and was consumed primarily by Aztec rulers and priests during sacred ceremonies.

Making cacahuatl was a tedious affair that involved roasting the cacao seeds—also called nuts or beans—to a precise degree of doneness, removing the shells, grinding them on stone to a paste, mixing that with other dried and ground ingredients like chili pepper, vanilla, flowers, and spices, dissolving the results in water, and pouring it from one vessel to another, back and forth, until it developed a foamy froth. The Aztecs drank it at room temperature.
The conquistadors sweetened New World cacahuatl with another exotic ingredient—Old World sugar—and called it chocolate.

Other Spaniards shared Benzoni’s opinion of the Aztec beverage but grasped its benefits: “He who drinks a cup of this liquid, no matter how far he walks, can go a whole day without eating anything else.” An “anonymous gentleman” in Hernando Cortes’s party proclaimed the nutritious liquid food “the healthiest thing.” The Spanish noted that the beverage stimulated the senses in general and, they believed, one sense in particular—it was widely considered an aphrodisiac. Still, they didn’t like the taste. But, sweetened, they served it hot with breakfast for its energy boost.
Of concern to Catholics was chocolate’s definition. Was it a food or a drink? This had serious religious implications: if it was a food, it could not be consumed on fast days. Theologians and popes debated the question for two hundred years.

Yes, one drank chocolate, but then again, so many foods could be added to it, including bread crumbs, eggs, and milk, that it functioned more like a food than a beverage. And there was no denying that the highly caloric drink alleviated hunger pangs. Complicating matters was its reputation as a sexual stimulant, something that seemed doubly sinful on a holy day. In the end, those who judged it a beverage prevailed. Protestants and Jews did not share the Catholics’ concerns.
The first recorded instance of chocolate in Spain came in 1544 when a gift of cacao seeds was presented to King Philip II. The steady stream of priests, soldiers, and aristocrats back and forth across the Atlantic for the previous five decades makes it likely, however, that it reached Spain earlier than that. The Spanish kept the ingredients to themselves for almost a century.

Initially, all the chocolate was consumed by the Spanish aristocracy, not re-exported, so few people outside Spain and Portugal came into contact with it. As supplies of sugar and cacao increased, chocolate drinking spread gradually throughout the courts of Europe and became the preferred beverage of the rich and royal.

Only the rich and royal could afford it. The drink was time-consuming to make, and its exotic ingredients—cacao, sugar, and spices—had to be imported from faraway continents. All were labor-intensive crops that required large plantations with many slaves. Increased demand spurred the Spanish to spread cultivation of the "chocolate nut tree" throughout their ballooning empire, from the West Indies to the Philippines.

Celebrate National January Food Days With Virginia Food

We want to wish all our customers a Happy 2013! Thanks for a successful holiday season. Thanks for your support of Virginia products! Now back to blogging.

January is National Soup Month

Blue Crab Bay Soup Sampler

We carry seafood soup from Blue Crab Bay and Chincoteague Seafood Company.

Blue Crab Bay has a New England Clam Chowder and Crab Norfolk Chowder with Virginia ham as well as Eastern Shore Chowder, She Crab Soup and a Cream of Crab Soup.

Chincoteague Gourmet Sampler

From Chincoteague Seafood we sell 3 Chowders: New England, Manhattan, Corn Chowder; 4 crab soups: She Crab, Vegetable Red Crab, Cream of Crab, and Crab and Cheddar and 4 bisques: Lobster, Clam, Lobster and Cheddar and Shrimp.  Many have been awarded The American Taste Award of Excellence Certificate.

The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg
Peanut Butter

January 24 National Peanut Butter Day
A favorite for years at The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg, all natural Virginia Peanut Butter has become famous. This peanut butter is just that - peanuts, and maybe a pinch of salt. No added sugars. Available in smooth, salt free smooth, crunchy, or as sampler of all three.

Milk Chocolate Peanut Brittle

Jan. 26 is National Peanut Brittle Day

We carry peanut brittle from The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg, It comes chocolate covered and plain, In tins, assortments, gift baskets, gift tins and gift boxes. There are even new brittle bites.

National Pie and National Chocolate Covered Anything Day

Sweet Potato Pie

During December there is a lot to celebrate, but let’s not forget to celebrate National Pie Day on December 1. It took generations to perfect the Classic Pecan Pie, and our recipe will make any Southern baker proud - using only fresh ingredients and fancy Georgia Pecan halves. Our Sweet Potato Pie is made exclusively for Smithfield in their friend Nell's Rockahock Farm kitchen. The tangy flavor, layered with cream cheese, and topped with pecans take the traditional sweet potato pie one step further.


Later in the month enjoy celebrating National Chocolate Covered Anything Day on December 16. We have plenty to choose from: chocolate covered peanuts, chocolate covered peanut brittle, chocolate covered specialty nuts include chocolate covered cashews and chocolate covered almonds, and chocolate peanut clusters. Some come in gift assortments.

Milk Chocolate Peanut Brittle

Chocolate Peanut Clusters

Chocolate Lover's Tin

Gift assortments include: Chocolate Peanut Clusters are Virginia Peanuts Topped With Caramel and Milk Chocolate. Chocolate Nutty Brittle comes in a tin, chock full of premium specialty nut dipped in rich milk chocolate to double your pleasure! Lightly roasted Georgia Pecans, Whole Almonds, Jumbo Cashews, and Macadamia Nuts make this delicious treat doubly special. The Colonial Tavern Peanut Basket Combo includes a tin of chocolate covered peanuts, along with a tin of salted peanuts, a 2 lb. Colonial Tavern Bag of Salted In-Shell Peanuts and an Official Peanut Basket. Deluxe Peanut Tower includes chocolate covered peanuts. Two Fine Nut Collections include Chocolate Covered Peanuts. Chocolate Lover’s Sampler includes dark and milk chocolate covered peanuts, chocolate brittle bites, milk chocolate almonds, dark chocolate cashews and peanut and caramel clusters. The Holiday Star Collection Box includes chocolate covered peanuts. The Holiday Trees Tin, Pine Cone Tin and the Little Drummer Collection include chocolate covered peanuts. The Nutcracker Holiday Tower includes chocolate covered peanut brittle. In the Gaming Collection, the Bridge Mix has assorted chocolate covered bites of nuts, cremes, caramels, and toffees and the Casino Mix includes chocolate covered almonds.