However, people actually loved the cheese, the mastodon, the word "mammoth," and the very concept of bigness.
| Jeff Pasley): Giant foodstuffs and fossils seemed to speak some democratic, patriotic idiom that the Federalists did not understand. ... A copycat baker in Philadelphia advertised "Mammoth Bread" for sale; a "Mammoth Eater" in Washington downed 42 eggs in ten minutes; and two admiring Philadelphia butchers sent what Jefferson himself referred to as a "Mammoth veal," a hindquarter of the largest calf "we remember ever to have seen in this part of the country," 436 pounds at only 115 days old. By the time the veal got to Jefferson, however, its age was such that he declined to eat it. |
More than two years later a "pungent remnant" of the cheese was still being prominently displayed at the White House and fragments were being served on ceremonial occasions, although "very far from good."
The very last decayed and maggotty chunks were eventually dumped into the Potomac.
| In 1829, two of the 1801 curd suppliers, Israel and Molly Cole, sent another new Democratic president another congratulatory cheese, along with a cover letter inquiring about the new administration's naval policy. At 100 pounds, however, Andrew Jackson's cheese was only relatively mammoth. (Pasley.) |
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