JEFFERSONIAN DINNERS
One of the most luminous dinner hosts of all time was Thomas Jefferson. Only Churchill's war-time dinners can possibly approximate the style as well as the substance of the dinners hosted by Jefferson, where by flickering candle-light, a country was helped to come into being.
Almost reluctantly accepting the post of Secretary of State for America's first President, George Washington, Jefferson and his close ally, James Madison, were frequently at loggerheads with Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury for the then neophyte nation.
The young country's political coherence was in question as the location of the Capital was being contentiously debated. And the country's financial standing was in jeopardy, as settlement of war debts had to urgently be agreed. The undermining of financial credibility, Jefferson called, "The Ultimate Calamity." It would stifle growth and compromise the future.
Jefferson's solution was to give a dinner.
Though away from his beloved Monticello, he brought the same elements to bear. Elegance, carefully selected cuisine, notable wines worthy of conversation, and key people (Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison) thereby brought closer together than at any time in their acquaintance (particularly Jefferson and Hamilton), through the intimacy of the evening, and the candor it evoked. Together, in that warm and stimulating setting, they together agreed how to move beyond the impasse and take their beloved Republic into the future.
Fast forward to today, and "Jeffersonian dinners" were revived as a concept by Jeffrey Walker, as Executive-in-Residence at the Harvard Business School, focusing on Social Philanthropy, and also then a Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, teaching classes on applying private equity tools to the not-for-profit world.
These dinners are launch pads for what has been called "exponential philanthropy" (where relationships and connections build on and reinforce each other, and then ripple outwards on that basis) and more generally for creating "transformative connections" between a variety of people focused on a variety of areas and causes.
These modern-day dinners have successfully taken on an important part of the Jeffersonian formula for sure. Bring the right people (people who care about the topic, can provide leadership or investment or resources, or who have ideas you wish to tap) together over the intimacy of a shared meal enjoyed in the spirit of camaraderie.
Then, pick a topic of common interest, whether how to advance a philanthropic cause ("How can the Eye Bank galvanize interest to even better fulfill it's mission in the coming years?"), create commitment around a social issue ("How do we define success for women in the 21st century and create practical traction and buy-in around that?"), heighten focus on a corporate priority ("How can we bring Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing to our company?"), or indeed any other area where generating ideas, understanding and then commitment and action matter.
And then moderate the discussion so that there is a good balance between "Me" (my own experiences and feelings), "Us" (common thinking on the issue, challenge or opportunity), and "We" (sharing conclusions, agreeing follow-up and shared accountability for actions flowing from these).
The part of the formula that seems to have been side-lined is the additional catalyst that great hospitality, wonderful cuisine, and seductive wines can offer: liberating our creativity, stirring our passion, and helping to forge community.
In fact, the "Jeffersonian" formula has remained a hallmark of diplomacy until recent times.
Eminent real-estate developer and prolific essayist, Daniel Rose, a contributor to the arts and a true Renaissance man in many ways, in a benefit for The New York Public Library spoke about the importance of Talleyrand's banquets to France's success in being recognized as an equal at The Congress of Vienna after Napoleon's defeat.
He points out, tongue ever so slightly in cheek one suspects that "Unsubstantiated rumor has it that Kennedy's missile crisis triumph over Khruschev was planned over superb White House dinners presented by Chef Rene Verdon, but that his disaster at the Bay of Pigs was hatched in Hyannisport over beer and burned hot dogs."
My own father, a diplomat for Pakistan (at a time when Pakistan was happily not featured in the news for the reasons it is today), treasured Daniel Rose as among his closest friends. In fact, my father had a knack for engaging other luminaries as well, like Dean Acheson, and later, among many others, George Schultz, with whom he served on the JP Morgan International Advisory Board.
My father was an unspoken but ardent Jeffersonian when it came to creating connections. Despite representing a relatively marginal country on the world stage, my father and mother entertained vigorously. Whenever they landed in a new city, they would gather an initial group of people for dinner, light the Jeffersonian "lamp" so to speak, and kick off wide ranging conversation. One question my father always asked was, "When you next dine with us, who are the 3-4 people you would most like to see at the table?"
He collated the replies and ongoingly assembled an increasing number of stimulating people, each of whom would in turn be asked the same question. Most of them, charmed by exotic cuisine and artfully paired wines, coupled with penetrating dialogue and warm hospitality, tended to become warm advocates.
While they did this with grace, this was certainly not unique to my parents. I have seen many wonderful examples of this across the world. In fact, this wine-laced and cuisine-catalyzed crucible for change, was showcased several years back in the Broadway play, "City of Conversation" (inspired by an actual Georgetown maven whose parties allowed deals to be struck, important "battles" to be constructively waged, and whose dinners attracted the powerful and the brilliant). For so long, such modern day "salons" were linchpins of politics and policy, social commitment and great possibilities -- often incarnated through the personal relationships forged or solidified.
Note, this does not require luxurious cuisines or wines, though often these have historically featured. It requires "care", "attention", "quality" of whatever it may be (a potato salad recipe, a cheese, an artisanal beer), again, things with a "story", or worthy of a conversation, where you "bond" over the specialness of a shared experience, wonderful bread, an artisanal bakery for enticing desserts, lovely cutlery or crockery...a memorable experience. A tuna fish sandwich can work if you really seek out a distinctive recipe and execute it with love. But "compose" the flow of the experience, and ensure some choreography in terms of the environment and how things are laid out.
The marriage of ideas and wines, by the way, is certainly in keeping with the spirit of the Western world's cultural heritage. The original meaning of the word "Symposium" after all, is a gathering to drink wine and discuss wide-ranging matters. It was, in the Platonic sense, a festive party full of vinous cheer mixed with heady thought and intellectually rich exchanges.
Churchill "across the pond" during World War II, was the greatest practitioner of the art in the 20th century. To him dinners were a stage and a platform for eliciting information, enrolling commitment, building bridges between positions, nudging hearts and minds, all the while deploying culinary and vinous tactics of the highest discernment.
Jeffersonian dinners allow us to be "sommeliers" (the original word means someone in charge of transporting supplies) of great ideas in exciting company, reveling in the enjoyment of beautiful food and drink. And as we "break bread" together, we can also begin to break the husks of inertia and ennui, outdated ideas and limiting paradigms.
I hope this kindles your own desire to create such evenings to advance ideas, causes and initiatives you are passionate about in your company, home or philanthropic life.
When we stop detaching what we enjoy from what we care about, what we think from how we feel (link to first Substack), what we believe in from how we interact, we can exercise perhaps a truly radical option: to communicate meaningfully and purposefully as we also celebrate artfully and whole-heartedly.
This is a quintessential human enterprise, and it needs to be reclaimed from the alienation imposed by the horrific years of C-19 "fascism." It had been eroded through cultural apathy and disdain even before. We've never needed it more.