“Thomas Jefferson” speaks at VGCC on religious freedom, culinary tastes

President Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Bill Barker, recently made a pair of presentations at Vance-Granville Community College, sponsored by the VGCC Endowment Fund. First, he lectured on the “Freedom for Religion” on March 20. Barker followed that up with “Mr. Jefferson on Food and Wine” on March 27. VGCC students, faculty, staff and members of the community enjoyed the hour-long presentations in the Civic Center on the college’s Main Campus.

In the first lecture, “Jefferson” recalled that when he was a young man, Virginians like him, as well as Americans in most of the other colonies, were not only subjects of the British crown but also governed by the established church. “It was expected that you would attend the Church of England and tithe to the Church of England,” he noted. “If you wanted to marry, you had to purchase your license to marry from the Church of England. If you wanted to preach in your Presbyterian, Methodist or Quaker meeting-house, you still had to purchase your license to preach from the Church of England.”

As a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, Jefferson advocated for the rights of minority groups like the Baptists to practice their religion freely before the American Revolution. After the colonies declared their independence, Barker told the audience, the task fell to Jefferson to write the statute that would change Virginia law to allow for religious liberty. The proposal had its detractors. His rival, Patrick Henry, said the bill allowing for greater freedom “would lead to immorality and the loss of religion,” Barker recalled. Jefferson protested that the bill was designed “not to disengage religion from our lives.” Indeed, he countered, “wherever there is a freedom for religion, you will see the greatest civilizing of man.” Jefferson argued that state law must not try to coerce its people to have one religious belief or another. Legislative bodies, he said, could not “legislate opinion.”

“I am opposed to politics in the pulpit, and the pulpit in politics,” Barker said in character, “because it removes us farther and farther from the truth, and that we should never desist from pursuing.” He went on to say that the “wall of separation between church and state,” as he put it, simply meant that there must be “a separation between the civil authority and the ecclesiastical authority, allowing greater freedom than has ever been known in human history. The two [church and state] have different purposes. This is what our Constitution assures.” As for his personal beliefs, Jefferson noted that he helped form the American Episcopal Church in Virginia. “I attend church every Sunday, and I sit on the board of directors for the American Bible Society,” he said.

For Barker’s second presentation, the VGCC Culinary Arts department provided refreshments as the Founding Father discussed food and beverages. He told stories from his life that reflected upon the subject, including the “five delightful years” he spent in France, representing the United States. There, as Barker recounted, he learned much about cuisine as well as the cultivation of wine.

Jefferson informed his modern audience of all the foods, sauces, wines and techniques he encountered in Europe that were unknown to Americans. His 18-year-old slave, James Hemings, studied cooking in Paris and brought back what he learned to Jefferson’s Virginia home, Monticello. It was Jefferson’s desire “never to abandon my ‘native vittles,’ but rather, to prepare them in the French fashion.” He was also responsible for bringing to America from Italy a “macaroni machine,” Parmesan cheese and risotto, which he risked the death penalty to smuggle out of Milan.

Jefferson was always a connoisseur of wine. “No nation is drunken where wine is readily available,” Barker said, as Jefferson. “Otherwise, the people will become reliant on the harsh liquors. Wine has become a necessity of life for me, a panacea for ailments, and who can deny that it is conducive to good conversation? I have at least two glasses a day.” Wine was not the president’s only favored beverage, however. “I have considered coffee since my youth as the drink of the civilized world,” he noted. “In fact, even now, I use one pound of coffee a day.”

As part of the presentation, Jefferson showed the audience some examples of what he called “table furniture,” such as flatware, plates, goblets and wine glasses. At one point, he presented what he called a “napkin,” which was much larger than those used today. He explained that, at an inn or restaurant, such a napkin would be “affixed to you by your server around your neck.” He explained that this was the origin of the phrase “tying one on.”

Unlike in any of his previous VGCC appearances, Barker broke character at the end of the presentation to discuss his own craft. He said he has been performing as Thomas Jefferson for nearly 35 years, including many years at Colonial Williamsburg. Though he is from Pennsylvania, Barker has a local connection, as his father was an Oxford native and he has many relatives in Granville County. He said he takes seriously his responsibility to educate people about Jefferson. “Jefferson was a lifelong devotee of education, hoping that our nation would have a universal system of education so that we may know the facts and understand people better,” Barker said.

As the presentation ended, an audience member, Ray Sutton, a resident of the Clarksville, Virginia, area, near Kerr Lake, presented Barker with a bottle of wine. Sutton said the wine was made from grapes grown by Charlie Easton in Granville County. Barker was delighted and grateful, saying, “I always knew that Granville County was Jeffersonian at heart!”

 

Above: From left, Ray Sutton, a resident of the Clarksville, Virginia, area, near Kerr Lake, presents a bottle of wine to “Thomas Jefferson” (Bill Barker) at the VGCC lecture entitled “Mr. Jefferson on Food and Wine.” Sutton said the wine was made from grapes grown by Charlie Easton in Granville County. (VGCC photo)

Above: Bill Barker, as Thomas Jefferson, makes a point during his presentation on religious freedom at VGCC. (VGCC photo)

More photos: Check out our album on Flickr !