Harrison Presidential Site to offer tastes of history with new Juneteenth celebration

Want a literal taste of history?

You might be inclined to find yourself at the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site’s Juneteenth celebration this summer, when you can dine like a U.S. president.

A festival will feature Black-owned restaurants and catering operations, some offering dishes made from recipes of the president’s White House chef.

The inaugural Juneteenth Foodways Festival on June 17 honors Laura “Dolly” Johnson, a former slave from Kentucky who became the head chef for President Benjamin Harrison’s White House in December 1889. Johnson’s position today is called White House executive chef.

The event also will celebrate Black-owned restaurants and caterers.

The museum plans to have on hand eight to 12 Black-owned restaurants, food trucks and caterers.

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Some will be recreating Johnson’s recipes. Coleslaw and pecan pie were among her signatures.

“It makes it a very unique opportunity to learn more about her but also just kind of honor her in that way,” said Whitney Ball, special events and marketing manager.

The site recently found a menu from the White House from that era and is trying to confirm its connection to Johnson.

Running the White House kitchen

Johnson (1852-1918) was hired to replace a French cook whose heavy pastry and sauces gave Harrison indigestion, according to the White House Historical Association.

She was brought in to provide cooking that suited the president’s “plain American taste.”

Celebrating Johnson, part of a current exhibit at the museum, was a great peg for the site’s first Juneteenth celebration, Ball said. In the past, it has observed the holiday by providing free admission codes.

Juneteenth is the June 19 holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans when news of the end to slavery reached Texas in 1865, nearly two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. The holiday gained mainstream awareness over the past couple of years and became a federal holiday in 2021.

“We were talking about trying to find the most authentic way to do it,” Ball said. “After learning more about Dolly Johnson and that relationship, that just became a natural transition for us to have a food festival to honor her during Juneteenth.”

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Johnson was hired by first lady Caroline Harrison, and most likely got the job through a referral from one of Caroline Harrison’s distant relatives in Lexington, Kentucky, according to the museum.

The Kentucky Leader reported on Dec. 3, 1889: “The fame of her cuisine has spread far and wide and a Kentucky dinner has gotten to be synonymous with a feast for the gods.”

At the White House she ran the kitchen, planning meals, the newspaper reported. She was assisted by another Black cook, Mary Robinson.

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Johnson returned to Kentucky due to her daughter’s illness before the end of Harrison’s term, but went back to the position at the beginning of President Grover Cleveland's second term. Cleveland fired her about a year later then asked her to return. She refused, but continued to cater special occasions and events under Cleveland, as well as the presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. She cooked a giant pecan cake for the 1906 White House wedding of Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice.

She and her husband Ed Dandridge, also a chef, built a national reputation for their cuisine in Lexington, where Johnson opened several downtown restaurants, including the White House Cafe and catering service.

Roosevelt visited her restaurants when he traveled to Lexington.

The food festival coincides with the exhibit No “Compact of Silence”: Black Civil Rights Advocates in the Harrison Era, which features Johnson. Running through Nov. 1, it highlights civil rights activists during Harrison’s 1889-93 term.

Supporting Black-owned businesses

The festival is the first in a series funded by the Eli Lilly and Co. Foundation over the next few years, but the museum hopes to continue the Juneteenth program beyond that, with other themes, Ball said.

Taking place on the site’s lawn, the event is free and open to the public.

Vendors with goods outside of food also will be onsite, and the day will include dramatic readings and museum tours.

“It'll be a really fun day for everyone, all the families, the neighborhood, anybody who wants to try some good local food from Black-owned restaurants and caterers,” Ball said.

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Black Lemon, the Indianapolis ramen pop-up operating out of the Bullseye Event Center, 723 S. Capitol Ave., is among those signed on.

The site is providing a stipend to food vendors, who keep 100% of their sales for the day.

Restaurants and caterers can apply to participate through 5 p.m. March 31. Contact Ball at 317-631-1888 or wball@bhpsite.org for information.

The Juneteenth Foodways Festival will take 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, June 17, at the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site, 1230 N. Delaware St., Indianapolis,

Contact IndyStar reporter Cheryl V. Jackson at cheryl.jackson@indystar.com or 317-444-6264. Follow her on Twitter: @cherylvjackson.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Juneteenth Foodways Festival celebrates Dolly Johnson at Harrison site