Odd this day

15 January 1909

116 years ago today, US President-elect William Howard Taft ate an opossum.

He may not be the best known man to occupy the role, but if you’re not American, you may know his name because he was famed for being a man who… looked like he enjoyed his food, let’s say, and is perhaps most renowned these days for appearing in a Popular Internet Photo sitting on a water buffalo.

That photo apparently dates from five years earlier when he was US Governor of the Philippines, where (presumably) it is easier to get hold of a long-suffering water buffalo to sit on than it is in the States.

Anyway, in 1909, he appeared in this less fun but more strictly relevant photo (presumably quite small, at the back somewhere) of the banquet at which he ate the possum.

Because this was not just some random decision to taste a marsupial whose unprepossessing physical aspect does not suggest exquisite flavour. No, it was a feast laid on by the Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta, Georgia, and — according to The Topeka State Journal 14 days earlier — was served at Taft’s request.

When a delegation of prominent Atlantans called upon Mr. Taft a few days ago in Augusta to arrange the details of his visit to this city, the spokesman courteously asked the next occupant of the White House if he had any suggestions to offer relative to the preparations for the banquet.

“Just one,” smilingly replied the big Ohioan. “I have had a lifetime longing to taste ’possum and ’taters. My visit to the south would be incomplete unless this wish is realized.”

The newspaper went on to say that

an even hundred of the largest and fattest [opossums] will be made for the banquet board … enough and to spare for the more than 600 guests of the evening

…and added that the creature was known for its “juicy meat”, and that

Southerners are traditionally partial to this dish

Fuck knows why. Some years ago, though, over on The Bad Place, historian Heather Cox Richardson found a copy of the menu at the Russell Library in Athens, Georgia.

…and they had turtle, too.

Intrigued by ‘Salad a la Taft’, there. Presumably meat-based

A contemporary report in the New York Times (which, in the early 20th century, did not appear to be able to spell the word ‘disturb’) said he was cautioned by a doctor at the banquet to eat smaller quantities and/or at a slower speed, but ignored the advice and suffered no ill effects.

And the Washington Post reported in 2014 (i.e. in the days when Jeff Bezos had only just bought it, and it was still recognisably a newspaper) that a craze began:

Fancy restaurants in the North started serving the Southern delicacy, and the New York Times ran an explainer on what possums were, for the “uninitiated.” (Some things never change.) The price of possum soared from $1 per animal to $10, as people started ordering them like crazy.

So far, so odd. But the possum story has not yet divulged all its riches. Not by a long way. before I go into them, though, a digression:

Is it ‘possum’ or ‘opossum’? Merriam-Webster says both date back to the 17th century, and both are perfectly valid names for the Virginia opossum, with the abbreviation ‘possum’ now being the more common term. Why that menu would refer to “o’possum”, though, must forever remain a mystery, unless the one in question had Irish ancestors (which is, after all, not uncommon in the United States — or at least not an uncommon claim).

Anyway, there are three odd offshoots of this story.

Firstly, people took it upon themselves to offer food-enjoyer Taft unusual things to eat from this day forward — including, on one occasion, another possum…

…but also alligator:

Then, there’s the strange decision to try to flog possum soft toys in an attempt to rival ‘teddy’ bears. As you probably know, stuffed toy bears became popular after Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a black bear on a 1902 hunt. He’d had no luck bagging a bear, so one of the trackers caught a bear

cracked the bear’s skull with the butt of his gun — carefully, because he wanted it to stay alive

…and tied it to a tree.

On seeing this, Roosevelt refused to shoot it, because it would be unsporting. This gave rise to a famous cartoon, Drawing the line in Mississippi:

…and to a type of plush toy which remains popular to this day. Some enterprising soul decided that Billy Possums would be the next big thing, and apparently presented one to Taft at the banquet. I’m indebted to Nothings Monstered for alerting me to this cartoon representation of the creature in question:

…but, and this may not come as an enormous surprise, Billy Possums did not take off as hoped. This is perhaps because (as long as you don’t inspect them too closely or get anywhere near their enormous clawed paws) bears can look quite endearing, whereas possums…

As far as anyone seems to know, no possum toys have survived. This also is not a great shock, even if it is a pity.

The final bit of this bizarre history comes from the Library of Congress blog, and takes us into rather less sunny territory. Taft’s request for a possum supper, apparently, was “a kind of political theatre”. He was from a northern state, and was trying to appeal to people in the South. Specifically, he

acted out solidarity with both white and Black Southerners by eating a delicacy loved by both, but particularly favored by Black folks.

This was 1909, though. It wasn’t quite that simple. According to the Washington Herald at the time,

several cooks had been brought to Atlanta to prepare the possums, all of them elderly African Americans from rural plantations. The most senior of these were described, again by the Herald, as “old Uncle Levi and two mammies,” and … While the waiters placed their knives on the Beast, the Rev. Dr. J. W. Lee, a Methodist minister, sang that old negro song “Carve Him to de Heart.”

As the Library of Congress notes:

The dish was appreciated by all, but when white and Black Georgians were together, it was cooked and served by hard-working but (apparently) cheerful Black people, sung about in African American dialect, then devoured by tuxedo-clad white men.

Once again, we’re not in the realms of vast surprise here, are we? Taft also made a couple of speeches while he was there. One to Black Atlantans:

a pep talk, telling African Americans that education and self-betterment were the ways out of poverty. It offered encouragement and friendly words, but no promises of any material help.

…and another to all the white people at the banquet, in which he said he would choose federal officers

whose character and reputation and standing in the community commend them to their fellow citizens as persons qualified and able to discharge their duties well, and whose presence in important positions will remove, if any such thing exists, the sense of alienism in the government which they represent.

He got a standing ovation for this, because it was code.

Taft was promising not to appoint people who would, for example, insist on enforcing the federal Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1871, and 1875. Instead, he would appoint people comfortable with local norms, including greater segregation and inequality than was allowed under federal law … a coded promise not to appoint Black people.

Yes, indeed. Thank heavens we live now in happier, more enlightened times.