George Washington may loom over American history as a general, a statesman, and the first president, but sit him down at a breakfast table and he becomes something far more familiar: a man with a soft spot for pancakes, a notorious sweet tooth, and the humble foodways of 18th-century Virginia stitched into his daily life. For all the marble monuments and mythmaking, Washington’s tastes were rooted in simplicity — the kind of food born from farms, hearths, and the rhythms of colonial kitchens.

Nothing captures this better than his devotion to hoecakes, the rustic cornmeal pancakes that were once as common in Virginia as cornbread is today. They were cooked on cast-iron griddles or even on the flat of a hoe over open fire, crisp at the edges and dense in the middle. Washington liked his drenched in honey — swimming in it, according to the family members who watched him happily eat plate after plate. Even when he entertained foreign dignitaries or political allies at Mount Vernon, hoecakes remained his breakfast of choice, served alongside tea. In a life defined by war councils and presidential obligations, this quiet morning ritual never left him.

But pancakes weren’t his only indulgence. Washington had a sweet tooth that generations of biographers have gently mocked. He adored small cakes, candied fruits, nuts glazed with molasses, ginger cookies, trifles — anything baked, sugared, or syrupy. This fondness existed alongside the stern discipline he demanded from himself and his soldiers, making it all the more endearing. Myths about wooden teeth aside, he simply enjoyed dessert, even when his own teeth began to fail him. At Mount Vernon, meals often ended with fruit pies or simple colonial puddings, washed down with Madeira wine, his drink of choice.

Like any wealthy Virginian of the late 1700s, Washington’s table balanced practicality with status. Meals revolved around what the land provided — corn, beans, squash, seasonal vegetables, local fish, and preserved meats. Smoking, salting, and pickling were everyday necessities, but affluence brought access to refined flour, imported spices, exotic sugars, chocolate, rum, and tea. Breakfast might be salted herring and cheese for most, but for Washington it reliably included his beloved hoecakes. Dinner, meanwhile, showcased roasted meats, stews, puddings, and the ritual glass of Madeira he considered almost medicinal.

What makes Washington’s culinary life so fascinating is how sharply it humanizes him. Beyond the portraits and the military stoicism was a man who loved simple comfort — warm cornmeal cakes dripping with honey, spiced nuts, a slice of molasses cake. His diet tells the story of a household shaped by enslaved cooks, regional ingredients, and the expectations of Virginia society, but it also reveals the ordinary cravings of an extraordinary figure.

So the next time you pour honey over a stack of cornmeal pancakes, know you’re sharing in one of Washington’s quiet pleasures — a moment of sweetness in a life that rarely allowed him any.