One of the most appealing things about my line of work is that, now and again, I have the opportunity to revisit something I’ve read, written or talked about. The other day, an invitation from the department of Judaic studies at the University of Cincinnati to deliver a public lecture about food provided me with the chance to do just that: to take another look at the sources and to rethink the implications of one of the better-known meals in Jewish history. No, I am not referring to the Last Supper, but to the so-called “trefa banquet,” which took place in Cincinnati in July 1883 to celebrate the ordination of America’s very first class of Reform rabbis.
Well before foodies had their day in the sun, much ink was spilled over its bill of fare. Celebrants barely had time to digest their dinner before its contents became public knowledge, generating the verbal equivalent of fisticuffs. This banquet, it was said at the time, was an “outrage,” an “indignity,” “a piece of audacious effrontery,” “vexatious,” and, in the cruelest cut of all, even “un-American.”
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