Did George Washington Actually Love Cherry Pie?

In 2024, archaeologists excavating George Washington's Virginia home, Mount Vernon, uncovered bottled cherries dating back to the 1700s. The fruit was found in several storage pits in the cellar and was incredibly well-preserved. This may sound like no big surprise. After all, Washington is famously associated with cherry pie. As a child, he chopped down a cherry tree and confessed to the deed because he could not tell a lie. That really happened, right? Maybe not. While cherry pie is often cited among Washington's most beloved foods, it's unclear if the nation's first president was actually fond of it.

The cherry tree story itself is almost certainly apocryphal. It did not appear in print until years after Washington's death, published in the fifth edition of Mason Locke Weems's "The Life of Washington" in 1806. Was cherry pie at least among the classic confections the former president liked to eat? Historians searched Washington's papers for references to cherry pie. While they found notes on Christmas pie, no cherry-based desserts appeared. There were ample mentions of cherries, but archival records provide little evidence to back up claims that Washington enjoyed the stone fruit baked into pies.

That said, pie was a common dessert during Washington's time. It was cheaper and easier to make than cakes, requiring fewer ingredients and sweeteners. So, it's not a stretch to speculate that Washington dined on cherry pie from time to time. We simply don't have concrete evidence identifying the dessert as the president's favorite.

While it's unclear if George Washington was a cherry pie lover, we do know the Washingtons liked cherries. Martha Washington's personal writings include requests to have fruit, including cherries, dried and stored by enslaved women at Mount Vernon, explaining why bottles were uncovered there. The Washington family was also known to frequently enjoy an alcoholic beverage known as "cherry bounce," which included brandy, cherry juice, and spices. So, Washington's love of cherries themselves was real, even if the president's adoration of cherry pie is questionable.

If not cherry pie, what was Washington's favorite food? He was a huge fan of hoecakes, cornmeal-based flat cakes somewhat similar to pancakes. They were a common dish during Washington's time, and the recipe stemmed from Native American culinary traditions. Despite his well-documented dental woes, Washington had something of a sweet tooth. He was known to top his hoecakes with massive amounts of honey and butter — the habit may have been his way of softening the cakes to make them easier to chew. The Washingtons were also known to enjoy hazelnuts, mutton, and fish-based meals.