Today marks an interesting anniversary in U.S. history—the first known appearance of a huge loaf of bread at the White House, as a tribute to an equally giant, politically charged cheese wheel that symbolized the First Amendment.
The bread was called the “Mammoth Loaf,” and it was made by the U.S. Navy for President Thomas Jefferson, to be eaten at a party in the Senate on March 26, 1804.
The bread was made to honor “The Mammoth Cheese”—a 1,200-pound cheese wheel sent to Jefferson two years earlier as a political statement about religious freedom.
The Mammoth Cheese was conceived by Elder John Leland, a Jefferson supporter in the Federalist hotbed of Massachusetts. (Jefferson belonged to the rival Democratic-Republican party.)
