Comments on: A Big Cheese for a Big Cheese

A Big Cheese for a Big Cheese

jonp72 — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:39:52 -0800

The Mammoth Cheese of Cheshire was the most unusual gift ever given to a President of the United States. In the aftermath of the "Revolution of 1800", the eccentric Baptist preacher John Leland decided to celebrate the presidency of Thomas Jefferson by convincing the predominantly Baptist farmers of Cheshire, Massachusetts to create a giant 1,235-pound block of cheese as a monument to small-"r" republicanism and religious freedom.

The cheese eventually reached Thomas Jefferson on New Years Day in 1802, the same day that Jefferson wrote his famous letter to the Danbury Baptists about the wall of separation between church and state. The Federalist Party, which opposed Jefferson's funding of scientific research during the Lewis & Clark expedition, ridiculed the cheese as a "mammoth," a reference to the recent exhumation of a mammoth by the painter and naturalist, Charles Willson Peale. The derision of the Federalists backfired, however, as the delivery of the cheese coincided with a huge "mammoth craze" that popularized the word "mammoth" as an adjective describing anything enormous, including a mammoth loaf of bread gifted to Jefferson in 1804. An experimental dairy station in Perth, Ontario eventually made a bigger mammoth cheese, but Jefferson's mammoth cheese has inspired a novel, a children's book, a monument protected by funds from the Department of Homeland Security, and a subplot on The West Wing. Last but not least, check out this research paper, which places the Mammoth Cheese of Cheshire in the context of Jeffersonian participatory democracy.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:52:47 -0800

(Jeffrey Pasley--last link--is a very well respected historian of the early Republic.) Fantastic post, thanks.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:53:26 -0800

Yes, but what kind of cheese?

By: lazaruslong

lazaruslong — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:54:11 -0800

Big Block of Cheese Day! yay!

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:55:02 -0800

1,235-pounds? It was a Munster.

By: joseph_elmhurst

joseph_elmhurst — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:55:17 -0800

Fantastic post. Thanks. And, oh baby, do I want a print of that Peale painting!

By: jquinby

jquinby — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:55:33 -0800

I love Big Block of Cheese Day.

By: Gungho

Gungho — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:58:39 -0800

So basically this whole separation of Church and State thing was to prevent this giant wheel of Baptist Cheese from stinking up Monticello?

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:00:27 -0800

January 2nd 1802 coincidentally marks "Fix the White House Plumbing Day."

By: Floydd

Floydd — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:01:42 -0800

Wow. A mammoth cheese, a mammoth loaf of bread. He's just a mammoth jug of wine shy of a picnic!

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:03:10 -0800

No one ever sends me mammoth anything. Then again I'm not the President.

By: jacquilynne

jacquilynne — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:03:22 -0800

The one and only bit of fan fiction I've ever written was a West Wing Big Block of Cheese Day scriptfic, so this post made me smile.

By: ericb

ericb — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:08:39 -0800

He's just a mammoth jug of wine shy of a picnic! Just make sure the Jefferson wines aren't counterfeits and bought by a billionaire.

By: rouftop

rouftop — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:13:10 -0800

1,235-pounds? It was a Munster. That joke really bleu.

By: suckerpunch

suckerpunch — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:15:39 -0800

The Ontario cheese was immortalized in verse.

By: suckerpunch

suckerpunch — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:20:31 -0800

Oh, I'm sorry. The previous ode was for the Mammoth Cheese of Ontario, 1889. The Mammoth Cheese of Ontario, 1893, was not merely immortalized, but, in fact, foretold.

By: everichon

everichon — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:43:24 -0800

Predictably, now I want cheese. And bread, and some porter.

By: suckerpunch

suckerpunch — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:48:53 -0800

everichon : it's not that big, and it had no effect on participatory democracy, but you may find it a simplification.

By: everichon

everichon — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:02:01 -0800

*head explodes in a shower of shamrocks*

By: zzazazz

zzazazz — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:37:16 -0800

That novel by Sheri Holman is actually pretty darn good.

By: The Bellman

The Bellman — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:57:30 -0800

Well I suppose this finally puts the last nail in the coffin for you foolish "old Earthers". Not only were mammoths around in the 19th century, they were being milked for cheese right here in the United States. Extinct for 12,000 years. Pah!

By: signalnine

signalnine — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:06:23 -0800

This is possibly the best post of 2007. Thank you.

By: beagle

beagle — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:09:16 -0800

Any truth to the rumor that the Clintons found the last of that cheese in the back of the White House fridge? Seriously, an excellent post. As a former Berkshirite, I've visited the cheese monument and known this story for a long time, but you added multiple extra dimensions to it. Kudos.

By: anotherpanacea

anotherpanacea — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:37:53 -0800

Big Block of Cheese Day is based on Andrew Jackson's 1,400 lb. block of cheese, not Jefferson's smaller 'mammoth' block. I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with a 'big cheese for the big cheese' joke I can stomach, so let's just take it as written, eh?

By: billyfleetwood

billyfleetwood — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:50:08 -0800

Hello everybody, I'm going off on a tangent... After a few drinks, I have been known to ramble on incessantly about my belief that Martin Sheen should be obligated to play the President in all movies and TV shows, until he either retires from acting, or dies. Should he be unable to perform his duties, Bill Pullman should be sworn in to replace him. I'm always disappointed when some town decides to make the worlds biggest hamburger, or the worlds biggest pancake, and it never looks appetizing or even edible. A mammoth cheese,however, probably looks and eats like any other cheese, only bigger.

By: Mike D

Mike D — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:03:31 -0800

"We have seen thee, Queen of Cheese". Speaking as a Perthite (well, an Ottawan, but my parents are Perthites and the homestead is there), I feel it only appropriate to put in a word for our monster: Unfortunately, the sign is long gone from the monument, and given its location down by the railroad tracks, now it just looks like a miniature oil tank. Altogether now. (That first line here is rendered incorrectly. It should be as above.)

By: biffa

biffa — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:07:15 -0800

A mammoth cheese,however, probably looks and eats like any other cheese, only bigger. This would only make sense if all cheeses looked and ate the same.

By: Mike D

Mike D — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:24:46 -0800

Apologies to SuckerPunch -- I missed the fact that you got there first.

By: Mike D

Mike D — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:26:44 -0800

Ah to hell with it... even the original post got there first. Memo to self: Coffee; THEN Metafilter; THEN post. I'll be better soon.

By: Jofus

Jofus — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:04:46 -0800

Awesome post!