{"id":13,"date":"2014-01-29T12:35:56","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T12:35:56","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2017-12-06T15:08:43","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T21:08:43","slug":"13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/untdocsblog\/2014\/01\/29\/13\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cheesy Tradition at the White House"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1802 the town of Cheshire, Massachusetts, renowned for the quality of its cheese, presented President Thomas Jefferson with a 1234-pound \u201c<\/span>mammoth cheese<\/a>\u201d incorporating milk from 900 cows and engraved with the Jeffersonian motto, \u201cRebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.\u201d The cheese apparently remained in the White House at least as late as March of 1804, at which point it was described as \u201cvery far from being good.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

\"\"In 1835 the dairymen of Oswego County, New York presented President <\/span>Andrew Jackson<\/a> with a 1400-pound block of cheese commissioned by Jackson\u2019s supporters, who believed that \u201cevery honor which Jefferson had ever received should be paid him.\u201d It was carried to the White House in a cart pulled by twenty-four horses, then deposited in the vestibule, where it aged for two years. <\/span><\/p>\r\n

In 1837 Jackson announced that there would be, at his last major reception before leaving the White House, a <\/span>cheese tasting<\/a> and open house to which the general public would be invited. Thousands of people showed up, and the cheese was consumed within a couple of hours, although the odor lingered well into the administration and White House residency of Jackson\u2019s successor James Van Buren, who was compelled to discard the stinky drapes, repaint the walls, and air out the carpets for several days. Not long thereafter, Van Buren received to his consternation a gift of his own 700-pound wheel of cheddar, most likely left behind by Jackson.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

The Jackson cheese episode, in a somewhat garbled retelling, became the inspiration for a fictional event on the TV show West Wing<\/em><\/a>. The White House Chief of Staff announces a \u201cBig Block of Cheese Day,\u201d during which the White House doors are opened freely to the public, who are allowed to present any question or concern, no matter how trivial or bizarre, and have it discussed by White House staff.<\/p>\r\n

\"VirtualOn January 29, 2014, inspired by Andrew Jackson\u2019s spirit of openness and by the fictional \u201ctradition\u201d portrayed on television, the Obama Administration is sponsoring the first Virtual Big Block of Cheese Day<\/a>. All day long White House\u00a0officials will host a virtual open house on social media, answering random questions from the public in real-time on Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, Tumblr<\/a>, Instagram<\/a> and via Google+ Hangout<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

See the White House Web site<\/a> for the day\u2019s schedule and information about how you can participate.<\/p>\r\n

Article by Bobby Griffith.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1802 the town of Cheshire, Massachusetts, renowned for the quality of its cheese, presented President Thomas Jefferson with a 1234-pound \u201cmammoth cheese\u201d incorporating milk from 900 cows and engraved with the Jeffersonian motto, \u201cRebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.\u201d The cheese apparently remained in the White House at least as late as March… Read more »<\/a>","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[275],"tags":[40,41,36,37,39,38],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-days","tag-andrew_jackson","tag-big_block_of_cheese_day","tag-cheese","tag-open_house","tag-thomas_jefferson","tag-white_house"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5tTx0-13","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/untdocsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/untdocsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/untdocsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/untdocsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/untdocsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/untdocsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":738,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/untdocsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/untdocsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/untdocsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/untdocsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}