I feel obligated to make a havarti attempt to whey in on last Wednesday's "Big Block of Cheese Day" at the White House, during which Obama staffers were grilled via Twitter on topics ranging from climate change to foreign policy, and crammed as many cheese-related puns as possible into their replies.
"It's that time of gruyere again," the White House announced on its website as last Wednesday's event drew near. "For the third time in a row, were brie-ing back Big Block of Cheese Day."
Cheez Whiz, it was grate stuff to hear all those puns from the White House, but I only discovered the event the day after it happened. Maybe I'm full of provolone, but I think I gouda been a contender! After all, I'm a partially cultured American - a cottage graduate, even - who has been known to churn out a few puns as I've aged. They may not be extra sharp, but they won't curdle your stomach, either. Some people even seem to edam up!
Okay, I'll cut the cheesy puns for a moment and explain the event, which was brought to life by President Thomas Jefferson, repeated by President Andrew Jackson, featured on a 1999 episode of "West Wing," and reincarnated by President Barack Obama for the past three years on the days following his State of the Union addresses.
According to an article in Atlantic magazine, it was a Cheshire, Massachusetts, church elder named John Leland who got the first presidential cheese wheel rolling back in 1801, Leland, who had campaigned for Jefferson, personally delivered a 1,200-pound, four feet in diameter round of cheese made by Cheshire townspeople to the White House and presented it to the president after passing beneath a banner prepared by the White House staff reading "The Greatest Cheese in America for the Greatest Man in America."
Jefferson, according to the article, broke out the huge cheese wheel at major White House dinner events, including the Independence Day dinner in 1803, and it remained in the executive mansion until 1804.
By the time Andrew Jackson was nearing the end of his second term in 1835, the aroma of superannuated cheese from Jefferson's White House pantry had apparently dissipated enough to allow the new president to accept the gift of a 1,400-pound wheel from a well-wishing dairy farmer from Oswego, New York. While Jackson is now reviled by many for implementing the Indian Removal Act and building a personal fortune through use of slave labor, the man did have a nose for both politics and the malodorous nature of a half-ton wheel of cheese.
He hosted a public reception at the White House during which the huge hunk of cheddar was displayed. Ten thousand visitors made short work of free cheese, polishing it off within two hours.
The "West Wing" episode had President Jed Bartlett's chief of staff, Leo McGarry, telling fellow staffers that Jackson's Big Block of Cheese Day was all about opening the White House doors, and its staff's ears, to complaints and comments by common citizens not ordinarily recognized by the highest levels of the Executive Branch. The Atlantic article, however, indicated that making political hay and eliminating cheesy odors had more to do with motivating Jackson's giveaway.
I'll let you make up your own minds.
For me, it was just fondue be here.