The General's Cook by Ramin Ganeshram

 Hercules was a cook to General Washington. He was a master chef, highly praised by Washingtons. But the story also reveals a darker side of the history. When “President George Washington came to serve his tenure in Philadelphia in 1790 bringing enslaved ‘servants’ with him from his household in Virginia. Most were eventually sent back to their estate, Mount Vernon, because the First Couple feared they would take advantage of Pennsylvania’s 1780 Gradual Abolition Act, which allowed for enslaved people to petition for freedom after six months of continuous residency. (…) He moved them out of Pennsylvania and into slave states to reset their tenure. (…) This rotation of enslaved people lasted throughout the Washington’s seven years in Philadelphia.”

Philadelphia, 1793. 

Once Hercules longed for the quiet Virginia countryside, but not anymore. He got to love the city of Philadelphia where a man couldn’t be whipped or chained.

Hercules is confident in the kitchen and knows his spices well. But there is a different kind of spice he’d like to use in his life. It is to learn to read. As free as the capital city is, it still holds some limits. He needs to do it in secret. 

When Gilbert Stuart comes back to America after 20 years in England of painting “better sort of people,” he approaches General Washington. But when the president refuses him, Stuart approaches Hercules. And they come to an agreement.

Once back in Philadelphia, after a summer in Virginia, which reset the tenure, Hercules is introduced to a group of abolitionists. At first, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with them. But with time, he starts questioning if he was too haste. 

As the story progresses, the layers are being peeled revealing the past, including how he became Washington’s slave, his cook, and about his four children.

Vividly told story with rich historical background, weaving between two places of Mount Vernon in Virginia and Philadelphia. 

Kudos to authors, who dig through the pages of history to uncover the lesser-known characters and have them resurface in history from the dusted pages.

“The slave uprising and revolt in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) (…) drove many white planters and their enslaved people from the island to the refuge of Philadelphia. (…) Philadelphia’s population at the time of this story was roughly five percent African American and most in that number were free people. (…) Education and learning was carefully kept away from the enslaved because in knowledge there truly is power.”

Publication Date: November 6, 2018

@FB/BestHistoricalFiction