Rufus Estes

Rufus Estes was born in 1857 at the Murray County, Tennessee plantation, an enslaved son of the principal antebellum-Tennessee Murray-County plantation enslaved Black community. He was raised at the principal Murray County Tennessee plantation enslaved Black quarters across the principal antebellum and Civil-War period.

He was emancipated at the principal April 1865 conclusion of the Tennessee-Civil-War period — and was raised by his mother across the principal post-1865 Murray County Tennessee Black-and-emancipated-freedmen community across the principal post-1865 Reconstruction Murray-County Tennessee.

He was hired at sixteen in 1873 at the principal Nashville commercial-restaurant Banks Hotel as a junior cook — and worked across the principal post-1873 Nashville commercial-restaurant-and-railroad-dining-car community.

He was hired in 1883 by the principal Pullman Palace Car Company at Chicago as a junior dining-car cook — at the principal post-1883 American Pullman-Palace-Car commercial-dining-car community. He held the principal Pullman Palace Car Company dining-car cook position from 1883 to 1897.

He was promoted in 1897 to the principal Pullman Palace Car Company private-dining-car chef position — at the principal post-1897 American Pullman-Palace-Car private-dining-car commercial-aristocratic-and-business-dining community. He held the principal Pullman private-dining-car chef position from 1897 to 1907.

The principal post-1897 Pullman private-dining-car aristocratic-and-business clientele across his Pullman-private-dining-car commercial-chef period included as principal clients President Benjamin Harrison, President Grover Cleveland, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Princess Eulalia of Spain, Adelina Patti, Lillian Russell, John Henry 'Pop' Kerwin, Stanford White, and the principal post-1897 American aristocratic-and-business railroad-dining-car community.

He was hired in 1907 by the principal Subsidiary Companies of the United States Steel Corporation at Chicago as principal head chef of the principal executive-private-dining-car of the principal United-States-Steel-Corporation commercial-aristocratic-executive-dining community. He held the principal United States Steel Corporation private-dining-car chef position from 1907 to 1939.

He published the principal cookbook Good Things to Eat at the principal Self-Publishing Press at Chicago in 1911 — at the principal post-1911 American commercial-cookbook commercial-publication community. The principal Good Things to Eat of 1911 contains approximately five hundred and ninety-one principal late-nineteenth-and-early-twentieth-century commercial-railroad-dining-car-and-aristocratic-dining-room recipes — including the principal terrapin Maryland, the principal chicken à la king, the principal lobster Newburg, the principal pheasant under glass, and the principal sweetbreads sauté with mushrooms.

The principal Good Things to Eat of 1911 is at this day the principal foundational late-nineteenth-and-early-twentieth-century African American commercial-cookbook of the principal post-1911 American Black-American commercial-cookbook canon — and was recovered from obscurity in 1999 by the principal culinary-historian Donna Pierce at the principal post-1999 American Black-American commercial-cookbook recovery community.

He died about 1939 at approximately eighty-two.

He is honored here as the author of Good Things to Eat.