Ramin Ganeshram, writer, journalist, chef, culinary historian, and executive director of the Westport Museum for History and Culture in Connecticut, USA, shares her life's work on the enslaved cook Hercules Posey and her research into the food around the time of the American Revolutionary War, which was fought 250 years ago and is widely celebrated this year. The conversation explores how foodways reveal migration, class, race, commerce, and power in American history. They also dig into Ramin’s research on Hercules George Washington’s enslaved chef, and how his food and Washington's political skills shaped diplomacy in the early republic.
Key topics
Ramin’s background and perspective
She shares her Trinidadian, Iranian, Kurdish, and New York roots, and explains how that mix sparked her interest in food, culture, and heritage.
What “foodways” really means
Ramin defines foodways as more than eating and tradition. It includes production, commerce, politics, sustainability, and the broader impact of food on society.
Food as cultural memory in immigrant households
She describes growing up in a home where food preserved identity, especially when language and other cultural expressions were pressured to assimilate.
Why food history in America is racialised
The discussion covers how whiteness, immigration, and access shaped whose food was celebrated, absorbed, or marginalised.
Early America’s global pantry
Ramin explains how citrus, tamarind, sugar, olive oil, almonds, coconut, and other ingredients moved through Caribbean and Atlantic trade networks into colonial North America.
The role of wealth and enslaved labour
George Washington and other elites could access rare imported foods because they had land, money, and enslaved labour supporting their households.
Philadelphia as a food hub
The city is described as America’s gourmet centre, with grocers, fruiterers, and street sellers moving citrus and other imported foods through the docks and markets.
Hercules Posey’s life and legacy
Ramin details her long research into Washington’s enslaved chef, his training at Mount Vernon, his move to the presidential household, and his self-emancipation in 1797.
Dining as diplomacy
Hercules helped shape the culture of elite and political dining, where the table became a tool for influence, hospitality, and statecraft.
Using food history to confront slavery
Ramin explains how exhibits like Bittersweet: Chocolate in the American Colonies help visitors engage with slavery through a familiar subject.
The Real Revolution exhibit
At the Westport Museum, Ramin is curating a broader view of the American Revolution that includes women, children, enslaved people, and gender-nonconforming participants.
Recreating colonial food today
The museum’s tavern setting, historic drinks, and period foods help make the era tangible without flattening its complexity.
Content
Ramin Ganeshram introduced as writer, chef, and museum director
How foodways became an early journalistic focus
Defining foodways beyond just eating
Food culture and assimilation in an immigrant household
Race, whiteness, and food in the United States
Ramin’s article on early America’s love of eastern foods
Caribbean trade as the hinge of colonial food access
Washington, elite wealth, and imported ingredients
Fruiterers, dockside trade, and everyday access to citrus
Philadelphia as America’s gourmet city
Writing The General’s Chef and recovering Hercules Posey legacy
How Hercules was identified and traced after self-emancipation
Washington’s use of Pennsylvania law to rotate enslaved people
Table service as a performance of status and power
Hercules’s training under the cook Doll in Mount Vernon’s kitchens
Reconstructing Hercules’s life without personal writings
What George Washington and the elites actually ate and drank
Sugar plums, Jordan almonds, and other elite sweets
Trade, wealth, and food imports in the colonies and early republic
Why black history is inseparable from American food history
Bittersweet and using chocolate to teach history of enslaved peoples
Exhibition at the Westport Museum of Culture & History, and its museum tavern, historic drinks, and traditional punch
Stirring Liberty, publishers and publication date.
Notable quotes
“Black history in America is American history”.
“What you put on the table was really the demonstration of your status”.
“I often say that he (Hercules Posey) created the concept of diplomatic dining”.
