a train is only passing through a corner of mexico. the officer will seal the cars so they cannot be opened while out of the country. when the train returns, inspection will not be necessary if the seals have not been broken. the united states is boarded by two friendly nations. there are no fortifications on your land borders as there are along most of the other borders of the countries of the world. and so the fine work of the u.s. customs service continues as it has for 175 years, playing on important role in the american economy, enforcing the laws of the land. our country's trade is safe as long as the customs inspectors stand guard night and day at our

ports of entry. ♪ coming up next, justices ruth bader again berg and sonia sotomayor share stories of the current supreme court's food traditions, including topics of conversation at shared meals. we also learn about customs dating to the 19th and 20th centuries. this discussion took place at the smithsonian's national museum american history here in washington and it's just over an hour. so it's absolutely a thrill to see so many people here for this kind of a program. my name is john gray and i have the wonderful privilege of being your director of national museum of american history, particularly on nights like tonight when we can really look at american history in unique and unusual ways. we are honored to be joined by

tonight's panel, supreme court justice ruth bader ginsberg. [ applause ] supreme court justice sonia sotomayor. [ applause ] katherine fitz. [ applause ] and supreme court society publications director claire cushman. [ applause ] it is now my privilege to introduce the 13th secretary of the zit sewnian institution, dr. david skorton, a board certified cardiologist, a jazz musician and he was recently the president of cornell university and previously served as president of the university of

iowa. he has interest in interests and learning as wide as the smithsonian and most importantly tonight he's a peskatarian. [ applause ] >> thanks, john, for the instruction a introduction and thank you from the american people or all that you do here at this amazing museum. [ applause ] especially in such an interesting election year we all appreciate everything you and your colleagues are doing to share so many aspects of the story of america and to aspire us all with that story. esteemed colleagues and friends, welcome to this unique opportunity, a word i don't use lightly to find out more about the highest court in the land and how its members have worked

and kind togethdined together. the supreme court and the zit sewnian has had close times. the chief justice has served as the chancellor of the smithsonian board of regents. i am indebted to chief roberts for his work in this capacity and for the gie dance he's provided me in my transition my first year at the zit sewnian and the education about the smithsonian and for his ongoing leadership. justice sotomayor and justice ginsberg i thank you and your colleagues for your crucial work that under pins or democracy. thank you. [ applause ] i know i speak for everyone by saying you are pioneers and role models and exemplars of the nuance prips. of thinking. and i am glad to say friends of the smithsonian.

justice ginsburg and soed minor have shared their stories with us as part of our smithsonian program and both are represented in the portrait gallery on the painting, "four justices." i invite all of you to see it. it is on display through october. the narkt postal museum have starps that feature justice william brennan, and this very museum has in its collection the robe sandra day o'connor wore when he was sworn in as the first women justice on the supreme court. the seismic shifts in our nation's history has typically been characterized in part by struggle. the politics have frequently been hotly contested. but as this year's contentious presidential election unfolds,

it's good to remember that politics can end at the edge of a plate. this is because food brings us all together. it is communal, it is ritual. food has always bound civilization as is evident in a phrase and tradition of breaking bread. one of my favorite variations of this term is it's hard to remain enemies when you've broken bread together. nothing kpem fies that more. the picture of the two of them on top of an elephant on a trip to india for me was worth many thousands of words. these brilliant colleagues put any differences aside, whether traveling the world or simply breaking bread together here. convening people to explore our shared humanity and a measure of shared wisdom is what the smithsonian is all about. from discussions of current

topics to educational program to events like this one that examine our common bonds. the zit sewnian is at heart a place with people can come together. thank you for gathering so we can hear some fascinating stories and partake of some food for thought. john? [ applause ] >> thank you very much, secretary. and thank you to our partners at the supreme court historical society for their support of this program. we also welcome the staff of the supreme court and the offices of justices ginsberg and soed minor and many other distinguished guests. tonight we're honored to be joined by two members of the nation's highest court and they've come together to talk about food. in fact this is one of those rare and special times when the justices will speak publicly on

topics outside the law. we are the home of julia child kitchen and so many other national treasures related to food and its consumption and its production. and we do so for a reason. we make the intimate link between food and our history and in doing so we help our nation understand the past in order to make sense of the present and shape a more humane future. food history, food stories and our own love of food awaken vivid memories that create an awareness and an empathy for all. with that just a few ground rules. fist, please limit your photography to the first two minutes of the discussion after i leave the stage. please remember to turn off your cell phones. it is now our honor to introduce tonight's panel on the fascinating delicious topic of the importance of food at the supreme court. please join me in welcoming our

distinguished panel, justice ruth bader ginsberg joined the supreme court in 1983, previously as part of an extensive distinguished legal career, she was appointed to the court of appeal. justice ginsberg attended harvard law school and received her llb from columbia law school and served on the law review at both schools. justice sonya soed minor joined the supreme court in 2009. previously as part of an extensive legal career, she served on the u.s. court of appeals for the second district, on the u.s. district court southern district of new york, justice soed m. katherine fitz is a occcurator the museum.

thank you all for joining us at our table and we look forward to this discussion. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you for that introduction. on behalf of the supreme court historical society, i would like to thank the smithsonian for partnering with us for this event, for hosting us in this beautiful room and especially to its staff for organizing it. on a cold february night in 1790 the justices met and held their first session of the supreme court in new york city. after they adjourned, they went to france's tavern and ate dinner. they kind with new york district judges, the attorney general and

had a really good time. they made 13 toasts, including one to the president, one to the constitution and one to the new national judiciary. so since its very inception, the supreme court justices have found way to come together and share meals. as they're appointed for life, they often sit on the bench together for years, if not decades. and they look for ways to enhance korjialty and cooperation by, as you said, breaking bread together. tonight we're going to examine the evolution of some of the court's customs involving food. from the early 19th century. and then hear about what some of these distinguished justices have to say about current practices. so let's start with the marshal

court era, when the great justice from virginia presided over the kourth from 1801 to 1835. there were six then seven justices and they were appointed from all up and down the eastern seaboard from boston all the way down to georgia and then out west to kentucky. they came to washington, to the supreme court sessions alone. they left their wives and their children in their home towns. they didn't move their families to washington. because the court term was very short. during the marshal outer era, it was usually two months long. accordingly chief justice john marshal arranged for them all to live together in a boarding house and they took almost all of their meals together. so katherine, why did john

marshal want the justices to live, dine, work and socialize together? >> well, i would say that i think the primary reason was that he wanted to build the bonds between the justices. i think it also goes to say that the court started off with a nomadic existence. they were in new york when that was the seat of the nation's government. then they moved to philadelphia, and then they came to washington. and i think also at the time we have to remember that in washington it wasn't the city of course that we know today. and so there were very few places for the justices and members of congress who would come on this transient schedule to washington. so they lived in the boarding house to gain that fraternal bond and to also come together. and i think john marshal also wanted the justices to kind of learn to come together and speak in one voice to try to give the

court some stature. >> so when they were eating in the boarding houses, were they in a private room or were they with other guests? >> i think at times they probably shared some meals with other gusts. but when they went to deliberate their cases, they met in private for those discussions. >> they actually ate dinner and deliberated cases at the same time. >> according to stories, that is the case. >> so was there no conference room available to them at the court? or what was the situation fliek like in the capital? zbli would have prefaced my remarks with that. when the court moved to washington, there was the president's house, there was the capitol. and even though we had a third branch of government, there was no place for the supreme court to meet. graciously room was made available in the basement of the capitol but it was just a small

committee room. i think it was 30-x-35. eventually in 1810 the supreme court got their first chamber on the ground floor of the capitol building. that's the era that john marshal comes to lead the court. >> john marshal had a great fondness for madera wine. he was not align. madera was very popular with most of the founding fathers, including thomas jefferson, his rival. apparently the shaking and the sauna like conditions in the ship's hull gave it a very complex caramel flavor that they la liked. tell us about john mar shl and madera. >> he gained his taste for madera in richmond. he was part of a coits club, in

richmond, a barbecue club for gentlemen. and john marshal was one of the founding members. and the club had their own bunch and madera was one of the primary ingredients, along with cognac, rum and sugar and lemon throw in for phonfun. it was a lawn game at the time akin to horseshoes. and they would throw these are rings. and supposedly john marshal was vigorous in enforcing his rules that politics and religion was not to be discussed and if anyone was caught discussing those, they were find a case of champagne which would then be consumed at the next meeting. [ laughter ] >> and apparently he had bottles labeled "the supreme court" that he brought with him to the boarding house to share?

>> i think there were also local merchants that kind of played on john marshal's and other's fondness for madera. and yes, there was a supreme court label madera. >> which sort of gave it the sale of aproefl. approval. >> right. >> john marshal had a great ally on the court, a man named josh story. he had a weak stomach and and he was a teetotaler when he arrived in washington. that didn't last long. and he wrote to his wife that the justices tried really hard not to drink too much wine. they had a rule that only on rainy days and for medicinal purposes would they imbibe. but apparently this was not a bright line rule. >> this is true. >> don't worry about the rainy day, which is told in various

versions. they drank only when it rained. and the chief justice said, he looked out the window and the sun is shining brightly, and he said, somewhere in the world it's raining. >> yes. [ laughter ] >> justice ginsberg, you have an anecdote abjoseph story's wife as well. >> she didn't like for him to be away at the capital city for weeks at a time. so she decided she would come along with him. and that made chief justice marshal rather uneasy. he said, it would be all right if she dined with them. she would add a civilizing

influence. but she mustn't be around when they are discussing cases. she didn't want to distract justice story from the work he was to do. as it turned out, sara's stomach was no better than joseph's. and the boarding house fare did not agree with her. so she left before the term ended. but it was the beginning of the end for the boarding house. one justice or another decided bhie should i have this boarding house fare when i can be living with my family. and i think johnson left and then another and another. and what happened, when the boarding house style of living ended, dissents began to appear in the court. john marshal did a remarkable thing. the tradition was -- the

tradition we inherited from england was that each justice wrote his own opinion. so say there was a panel of five judges, there would be five opinions, and then the lawyers had to figure out what the decision meant. marshal's idea was that there should be one opinion, it would speak for the court, there should be no dissents and he would write the opinion. it's remarkable. almost all of the decisions were written by the chief justice. but when the boarding house style of living broke down, so did the unanimity. >> so there's evidence that the marshal court justices like to share regional food products with each other. they were very proud of the foods from their home towns. for example, john marshal sent

virginia hams up to joseph story in boston and story reciprocated by sending down salted cod, along with a recipe for how to cook salted cod because it's nod easy. you have to soak it. and he wasn't sure the virginians knew what to do with it. my question is for both justices, starting with justice ginsberg, are there modern examples of justices today on the court bringing food from their home towns or back from their travels? >> or their hunting trips. we had an sbre pid hunter back who would bring fish to fowl to bambi to wild boar. >> justice breyer decided he needed to introduce his

grandchild to pheasant caught by our colleague and presented the pheasant, cooked it and presented it at home but explained to them that they need to be careful because there may be pellets in the game. and they refused to eat it so he ate it alone. >> another favorite was it's called beef jerky. it was made by sandra day o'connor's brother on the ranch, the family ranch. and a couple of times a year she would bring a large supply of beef jerky and distribute it. >> did you try it? it's apparently quite spicy. >> it is very spicy. >> i would have loved it. i came too late. >> and i understand that justice breyer and justice kennedy have brought wine for the court to

share? is that -- >> only on very special occasions. but it was the traditional dinner before the state of the union message. and one year justice kennedy came with a couple of bottles of opus one from california -- >> he's also brought duck from california. >> that was the first time i feel asleep during the state of the union. [ laughter ] >> well, justice sotomayor, i understand that when you first joined the court you brought a treat with you from new york for the other justices. >> well, i shouldn't be telling tales, but the colleague on this panel with me, i was told enjoys sweets, so i brought a box of

new york placeties for our first conference together. i've only learned later that the treat she was most fond of is muffins. >> now we have our own pastry chef at the court. >> many justices have had food related traditions with their clerks. harry blackman famously liked to have breakfast with his court in the supreme court cafeteria. and chief justice warren burger, a great lover of good food and wine and a good chef would make bean soup for his clerks on saturdays. i've been trying to get a recipe, an exact recipe for that bean soup but it seems to be a little of this and a little of whatever was around. but quite delicious. i'm going to ask both justices, do you have particular food traditions with your clerks? >> lots of them. >> okay. >> i love food.

and so i do. routinely on weekends when the bagel shop near the court was open -- it's now closed and i'm heart broken -- i would bring bagel in on the weekend, and all sorts of cream cheeses. and we would spend a lunch hour eating fresh bagels. i eat with my law clerks at home fairly regularly. they come over to my place every couple of months and their charge is to find a new delivery place that can deliver something, some food that's new for us. it's also in my clerk's manual that one of their responsibilities during the year is to identify a restaurant i haven't eaten at. and it has expanded my knowledge of d.c. restaurants, that rule.

so yes, i guess my final food related tradition with my clerks is when i travel, particularly abroad but anywhere in the ni s united states that might be different than a local spot, i bring back chocolates from that place, or their traditional sweets. and if you come to my office, almost always there is candy, which is a very unusual thing for a diabetic, isn't it? i once had a child ask me how could a diabetic have candy in her office. and my response was people like it. and they come to talk to me more when they know there's candy in my office. >> that's true. i can say sometimes i make a detour when i can stop by, especially by halloween when the supply is enormous. >> i have a lelly big halloween

bowl. >> justice ginsberg, so by the 1940s, the justices were bringing their families with them and living in washington. they became part of the washington establishment, part of washington society. you were instrument tall in helping the supreme court historical society get published, the memoir of the wife of john marshal hand land who served on the supreme court from 1877 to 1911. so could you explain a little bit about the elaborate social functions that supreme court wives had to undertake in that time period? >> let me say a word about her memories. i was trying to get information for a talk for the supreme court historical society on the lives of supreme court wives.

and there was precious little because most correspondence, the man's was saved and the woman's wasn't. the library of congress found buried among the justice's papers, this manuscript called memories of a lone life and it's the story of her mrs. harlan, a girl who grew up in indianapo s indianapolis. she married john marshal harlan from kentucky, a slave state. it's a remarkable book. and thanks to the supreme court historical society, it was the first publisher, is now out in random house modern library book. but one of the things she describes is at home mondays. the justices wives were expected

to have a tea for anyone who wanted to come. there could be 200, even 300 people on at at-home monday. they would serve scones and cakes and sandwiches. sometimes they would hire musicians so the young people could dance. all of this was not paid for by the federal government. it was the private responsibility of the justices. and then sometime in the course of the afternoon the justice would come out for 15, 20-minute appearan appearance. this went on for a long time. >> yeah, until the great depression when it finally put an end to all of those sort of social traditions. very expensive for the families to bear the cost of. >> but they continued to have

into my appointment at the court, a lady's dining room where the spouses met. it got to be a little embarrassing when two of the spouses were -- so the story of how we changed that -- the supreme court is a very tradition bound place. sandra o'connor and i thought, how should we suggest to the chief that the ladies' dining room should be removed. and she came up with a brilliant idea. he's tell him we want to call it the natalie cornell rehnquist dining room. his wife had died some years before, he was devoted to her. so we now have the natalie cornell rehnquist dining room in lieu of the ladies' dining room. >> let's shift gears a little

bit about talk about the lunch break. katherine, i understand that in the 19th century oral arguments went on for a very long time and so the court sessions lasted from 11:00 to 5:00 and then they were shortened from 12:00 to 4:30. what did the justices do about lunch? >> so believe it or not, while oral arguments were going on, one or two justices at a time would slip behind the bench, and their messengers would set up tables and the justices would eat lunch behind the bench while oral arguments were actually going on. >> so if you were sitting in the courtroom listening to oral argument, you couldn't see the justices eating because they were ghiend the bench or a screen. but could you hear them in. >> you could. kind of much like we're raised. in the courtroom the bench is raised all well.

there was a partition and and opening. but there was a partition. so the justices would be seated at these tables but you could certainly hear the clatter of knives and forks and fishes. the messengers sometimes would bring meals from the senate restaurant. and if you're wondering why i have this prop here, there's also a story that's repeated that one of the justices decided that they wanted to have a split of champagne with their lunch. and as the messenger was trying to open the bottle, supposedly the cork flew out over the bench. >> and weren't some of the oral advocates concerned that there wasn't a core rum on the bench when a couple of them had slipped away? >> there was. there was one instance where two members did not attend an oral argument because they were ill. and then again we would have one or two justices slipping behind

the bench to have lunch. and so as the story goes, an attorney asked the justice, asked the chief justice and kind of paused and asked the chief justice, well, are we sure there's a quorum. at that time there needed to be a quorum of six justice. and chief justice fuller at the time assured the attorney that although you can't see them, you can probably hear a few of my colleagues eating behind the bench and asked the attorney to proceed. >> brave lawyer. >> and so when did the lunch break fist get inaugurated. >> a few weeks after that incident. around 1988, the court initiated a lunch break, half-hour only between 2:00 and 2:30. >> but i've been working on researching a supreme court cookbook. and i found so many anecdotes about justices bringing their lunchboxes with them to the court and brown bagging it.

why would they do that if they had this cafeteria >> i think as we'll hear a little bit later on, we had certain justices that liked certain things for lunch. i think that's one of the reasons that the justices brought. and i think also because of the timing and within that half-hour, it wasn't like the justices could go have lunch at a restaurant. and then there were times when the senate restaurant was also closed. because when the court was meeting sometimes, you know, the senate wasn't in session. but i also learned that the senate had these little lunch et count ters. so since the court inherited space from the senate over time, i think they were close to the senate restaurant and these countered. sometimes food would be brought to them. >> so in 1935 tif the supreme court got its own building. what were the facilities like?

>> chief justice taft was in charge of the build. so one of the many requirements for new supreme court building when they were finally able to get a home of their own was that there not only be a cafeteria for the public and the attorney, because in that short window the attorneys were trying to go out and find something for lunch. there would be a cafeteria and the justices would also have their own separate dining room. and it had to accommodate 18 people and had to be in close proximity to the justice's conference room. >> so the half an hour lunch break lasted until 1970 when chief justice burger expanded it to an hour. i'm going to ask both of the justices -- start with justice ginsberg. you sflnow have a full hour, a beautiful justices dining room. what goes on during the lunch break?

and do the justices all generally try to attend on days when the court is in session? >> i will defer tony colleague for that one because she is a regular at the lunch table. i will show up whenever the court is conferring, we confer in the morning at 9:30, and then by the lunch break i will go with my colleagues to lunch. and occasionally other times when justice o'connor came to town or nowadays when john paul stephens is with us and for birthdays. now that's a nice tradition. whenever a justice has a birthday, the chief brings in some wine and we toast the birthday boy or girl and sing happy birthday. and we're missing our chorus leader because truth be told

most of them can't carry a tune. [ laughter ] >> i'm one of them who can't. i go regularly. and it's a wonderful experience. we have lunch plans after every court argument day, or morning. and after every conference day. and ruth comes to the lunch regularly on conference days. there generally is at least five people attending, five of the nine justices. occasionally more. all of us have fairly active schedules so it's hard to make it even more myself every lunch. but justices will come somewhat regularly on their own pattern of regularity. almost everybody will come when some of our retired justices

return for a visit, whether it's justice stephens or justice o'connor. we do have the birthday celebration. you asked what do we talk about. we have a rule similar to chief justice john marshal's rule, which is we don't talk about well-known -- they used to talk about cases. we don't talk about cases. that's our absolute rule. there is no topic off limits. but we try to avoid controversy. and so we're very guarded about raising topics that we think might create hostility in the room. that doesn't mean we don't talk about politics, but it's not in the great depth that we might do in the privacy of our home. okay? the most common conversation is

about a fascinating book that one of the justices is reading. all of the justices are voracious readers. and someone is always reading something that they think the rest of us would like. we sometimes have conversations about interesting exhibits in the wonderful museums of d.c. that's how i learn they're here. i don't have to look them up. i wait for a colleague to tell me that they've gone and i figure out which ones i want to go to. okay? we will tell funny stories on each other. someone will tell about an experience on vacation or an experience with a grandchild or a child. there is just the normal type of conversation that people have who want to get to know each other as individuals rather than as justices. >> you left out one major topic to which i don't contribute, but you do, certainly.

and that's sports. >> ah, yes. i'm sorry, ruth. you're right. but actually i only contribute really on baseball. the real sports person is alaina kagan, our colleague. >> and it used to be -- we should start this up again. every once in a while we would invite a guest to liven the lunch table conversation. thinking back on past years we've had supreme court justices, one from south africa, one from india, we've had secretaries of state, condoleezza rice was a lunch guest, the head of the zoo, which is the smith sosonian

institute. and michael kann who heads the shakespeare theater, the president of the urban court of justice and the european court of human rights. you had only two so far who have been repeat lunch guests. and those were alan greenspan and jim polfenson. and the reason is that those two have an uncanny ability to eat lunch and speak at the same time. [ laughter ] >> but ruth, that's stopped. >> it has. we should start it up again. >> i don't know. i wasn't a part of that tradition. but i do know that the justices have fascinating guests who come

join them. and every once in a while we will get a smaller group of justices together in someone's chamber to meet that guest. i know ruth i invited you when i had -- >> martina -- >> exactly. when she was receiving the kennedy center honor. and steve has invited me. but i think there are lunches, smaller lunches of that type that do go on. >> speaking of lunch, i've been researching the lunch habits of various justices and i find that they fall into two paradigms, the healthy eaters like louis bran diez who brought two pieces of whole wheat bread with french spinach in between. and then on the other side you have a justice who loved french

cheese, loved wine and his wife would send in giant platters of french cheeses for his lunch. so justice ginsberg, i'm going to ask you first, where do you fall on that spectrum and what do you -- how do you sustain yourself during the day? >> for 56 years i was married to chef supreme. my husband was a great cook. we didn't mention the spouses' lunches. >> we'll get there. >> okay. great. he was a big contributor to food at the court. he would make cakes for everybody's birthday, all of the justices birthdays, or my law clerks' birthdays. and in the days when we didn't have outside food before the state of the union, he

cooperated with sometimes scalia, sometimes mary kennedy in making the prestate of the union dinner for the court. >> for those of you who don't know, justice ginsberg was lucky enough to be married to martin ginsberg, a remarkably talented chef. i'd like to maybe just get back to the question about what you eat for lunch, justice sotomayor. i don't want to let you off the hook. i know that you've been very open about managing diabetes since your childhood. how does that play into how you sustain yourself during the day? >> i'm assuming that because of marty's culinary skills that ruth tends to eat relatively lightly at lunch, and i don't

think that you vary it greatly. am i wrong, ruth? >> huh? >> you don't vary your lunches. >> no. >> they're pretty simple. >> but my dinners -- my husband died in 2010 and my daughter has taken on the responsibility of make sure that her mother is properly nourished. it's only right because she phased me out of the cutchen at an early age when she learned the difference between mommy's cooking and daddy's cooking. so now she comes once a month, fills the freezer with food. when there's an overflow, i bring tight the court and put it in the court freezer and we do something nice together in the evening. >> i in turn vary my lunch and i

shop for myself every week. the day varies on the availability of time. and i bring my food in. and have it put together so that i can experience something different every day. every once in a while i will order in. my favorite order in or two, one, a local japanese sushi place. and another a local indian place. but most of the time i do eat very healthily. i love salads because you can vary them with the ingredients. no two salads i have are ever identical. i have occasional sandwiches but i also like making sandwiches in interesting ways with healthy ingreed yebts. so i'll put turkey or tuna fish

or boiled eggs, but then i'll put roasted peppers on it, pickles sometimes, whatever suits my fancy to increase the taste of the sandwich. eat a lot of fruit salads because i can vary those with types of fruits that i eat. so for me, eating is sacred. you should not waste a meal. and so it can be simple and healthy but it has to be tasty. >> in your other -- excuse me. >> courts habits with respect to food span a wide range. in contrast to sonia's well prepared diet, there was my deer colleague david suitor who ate one thing only for lunch. plain yogurt. no fruit, just plain yogurt.

>> i understand occasionally he had an apple. [ laughter ] >> later in the day. >> and he ate the core. [ laughter ] by the way, justices do have different eating habits. a number of my colleagues order from our cafeteria. i dare say that the chief orders from their cafeteria and he has a salad generally brought up. justices kagan, breyer and thomas will vary their lunches. justice kennedy, alito bring food from home. and sometimes i see sam's fare and i think maybe i should eat dinner with him more often. as with justice kennedy. because both of their spouses

are wonderful cooks. some justices, like justice stephens, ate a cheese sandwich on white bread with the crusts cut off virtually every day that i sat with him for a year. and i understand -- and ruth can tell me this because i didn't have the privilege of knowing his wife well. she was a wonderful cook. >> she was a dietitian. so she was a very healthy food provider. but there was a time when he was on a diet and he had grapefruit cut in half, ate both halves and today that's what he did >> that was before my time. >> i'd like to get back to martin ginsberg for a little bit. justice ginsberg, you were

talking about the wives teas in the late 19th century and the role that supreme court wives were expected to play. your husband played an extremely important role internally at the court by being a joyful participant in the spouse luncheons. the spouse luncheons are held, is it four times a year? are they pot luck? no. there are two or three of the spouses take the initiative to organize them. so my question to you, justice ginsberg, do you remember your husband going off to his first spouse luncheon and what his impression was of it and what he made for that luncheon? >> he made veal tanatto which is very popular. >> which -- >> it's in this book. this book "chef supreme" was conceived by martha ann alito.

she thought the proper tribute to marty would be a cookbook. so this has some 30-odd of his well over 150 recipes that he had on a disc. the choices were initially made by martha ann but then my daughter looked at the table of contents and said mother, those are not the recipes that daddy would have picked. so i said, all right, jane, you pick the recipes. in the table of contents there's one recipe, it says jane's caesar salad. so she contributed one of her own. [ laughter ] >> ruth, she's as good as her father, i understand. i had one meal at her home in new york and the food was fantastic. >> she's very good. >> the tributes to martin ginsberg in the cookbook by the

spouses are wonderful. and i'd like to just briefly read a bit, a snippet from kathie douglas stone, who was the widow of william o. douglas. this is what she wrote. he arrived dressed elegantly in a sports jacket with a handkerchief in his breast pocket. his smile gave the impression of perpetual amusement as though he had just heard some witty remark. he was soft spoken. aware of one aspect of a spouse's job is to bind in an institution desfiend by differences, he seemed'g tore do his part. we departed our lunches with marty feeling fulfilled and always closer to one another. i think john marshal would have really, really enjoyed martin ginsberg. my question to you, justice ginsberg, is did he just love to

share good food or do you think he was aware of this sort of important service he was doing for the court in binding it together? >> well, i'd say both. marty began his fondness for the kitchen i think shortly after i made my first meal. [ laughter ] and he said he owed his skill to two woman, first was his mother and his second was his wife. i don't think he was being fair to his moth, but he was entirely accurate when it came to me. marty began cooking when he was in the service in oklahoma. and i came back to give birth to jane. my cousin sent him the cookbook in english translation and said, this will give you something to

do while your wife is away. and so marty started on page one with the basic stuff. he had been a chemistry major at cornell, so he treated this cookbook like a chemistry book. but after the two years, he was already quite a good cook. >> he was a fabulous baker. >> yes. >> and made wonderful bread. >> yeah. he said there wasn't a decent loaf of bread in the entire city of washington, d.c. so he made his own bread. >> justice society mayor, let's talk a little bit about your food traditions. growing up, your mother if your auto biography, "my beloved world" you write she cooked rice

and beans. did you learn to cook puerto rican food growing up? >> i'm not a bad cook, but i'm a horrible cook of puerto rican food. and i know why. because i've tasted the best from my mother, my grandmother, my uncles, my father, i can't duplicate anything they make. so i've really have lost heart and don't try. i am now trying to figure out thou make my mother's recipe. so every time i visit her in florida, she still makes them for me. i dutifully watch and they're never the same. for years i thought it had to do with the pan she was using. or pans because they had to have been seasoned in a particular way. so i have taken three of her pans over time, every once in a while when we're in the kitchen

cooking with a new pan she'll look at me and say, i wonder what happened to the last one. it disappeared shortly after the last visit. but it is not that. she is a traditional cook which, to me, is someone who doesn't cook with recipes. and every meal she cooks tastes the same, but is better because something has changed and improved. i don't think i can ever duplicate her. but i do cook a lot of other things. >> well we're almost out of time. i just wanted to get one last topic in, and that is some of the other traditions of the court involving food. since the 19th century there have been welcome and farewell dinners for justices when they arrive at the court. justice ginsberg, do you remember your welcome dinner in

1993? >> it was made for me by justice o'connor. and thanks to kathy fitz, vi the menu some place here of what that dinner was. >> hopefully the one where i didn't forget to put part of the ingredients in the e-mail that i sent. >> it was red leaflet tus and chopped endive, a filet of salmon, it was a pear poached in zinfandel. she had entertainment from a group, what was the name of the group? >> the metro gnomes. >> we haven't been successful in locating that group. but the next year when justice

breyer came on board, i knew just what to do. justice breyer's wife, dr. joanna breyer is the daughter of a wealthy entitled englishman. so i asked katherine fly, who ran the theater that did gilbert and sullivan's to take some of the songs and make up lyrics that fit justice breyer and his wife. but i think the best party that we had was the one when justice so connor retired. she insisted that she didn't want to have any party. so justice suitor came up with an idea that he thought she couldn't resist. and it was that she could pick any movie that she would like to see and we would watch it in the

theater and then we would have an appropriate dinner to go with the movie. well, the movie was "red river" with john wayne and montgomery cliff. it has every politically incorrect thing in it. it's sexist and racist. but we had popcorn, each of us, and then we went to the caucus room in the library and we had south western dinner. >> well, i can -- we -- our tradition on the court is that the least junior justice will welcome the next incoming justice by arranging a welcoming dinner. and so mine was arranged by sam alito. and it was a wonderful dinner.

he had a classical guitar player playing spanish music, which was, i thought, beautiful and quite, quite entertaining. entertaining. the next year when elena kagan came aboard, i decided to call up one of her friends from harvard and ask them what they thought was her favorite food and the friend reported that their favorite food -- that her favorite food was chinese. well, i had a problem which is that justice stevens didn't eat chinese food and so i had to devise a menu that would sats fry him but also satisfied her. so i worked very diligent with the caterer to come up with an asian-flavored meal that everyone would like and i think

that did turn out. but during the dinner at some point i explained to justice g kagan what i had done and she said "who told you i like chinese." and i told her the name of the person and she turned to me and said "i'm really grateful for your thoughtfulness but --" and i won't mention that person's name -- "that person likes chinese food." [ laughter ] at any rate, i still think that she enjoyed the dinner. and there is a memento that is given or at least in the tradition that i've been a part of at the end of the dinner, a keepsake that's presented. at mine justice alito gave me a bottle of wine with a picture of the supreme court and my name on it and the date. at justice kagan's i presented her with a chocolate gavel. i don't know how many of you

remember that during her confirmation hearing there was a picture of her in high school in a robe with an oversized gavel in her hand so in my welcoming remarks i gave -- i indicated that i thought the chocolate gavel was now well deserved. at any race the dippers are fun. a lot of the retired justices -- not all of them -- sometimes return and occasionally the spouses of deceased justices also come. >> we should mention in the dinners after the musical, the court started having musicals some time in the 1980s. it was begun by justice blackman and when he retired justice o'connor took it on for about four or five years and i've been doing in the the years since so

the artist performs at 3:00 in the afternoon and then the special friends of the artists and the special friends of music at the court have dinner together in the justices' dining room so we have had some pretty outstanding guests in that dining room going back three years, yo-yo ma, wynton marsalis a . >> do we have time for -- i just want one more question. do we have time? okay, so i'd like to ask each of the justices, if you had the opportunity to have a long, leisurely lunch with two supreme court justices no longer living who would you choose to break bread with? >> when you asked about this i

think both of us said the great chief justice john marshall who when he made the institution that it has become. also because i was so taken with the biography of marshall by gene edward smith. in college i had suffered through marshall multivolumes and not very interesting but the man comes alive in the gene edward smith biography which i recommend to all of you. another possibility would be the first justice john marshall holland. think of what his parents had in mind when they named their child after the great chief justice. because, he was, as i said before, a man who grew up in

kentucky on a plantation with slaves and then he became -- well i suppose he's best known for his dissent in "plessy. have versi-- v. ferguson" the c that established the separate but equal doctrine but in the so-called civil rights cases he dissented when the court struck down a major piece of reconstruction legislation, the public accommodations law that gave people without regard to race access to places of public accommodation. the court said congress did have the short to do that and he wrote a fine dissent, it's very much like his later dissent in

plessy v. ferguson. i'd also like to have lunch with curtis, the dissenter in the br dred scott case, one of the two dissenters. >> well, i mentioned john marshall and i think justice ginsburg has explained and i think everyone knows his historical importance but i started to think what are the important ingredients of eating for me? and the first is good conversation intellectual conversation and john marshall fills that bill. second, good food and i would have wanted to have harlan fifthstone there with his platter of french cheeses. [ laughter ] because i love good food and cheese to boot. and then story telling and

thurgood marshall i understand was a justice who was on the court over 20 years and i am told by some of my colleagues that he never told a story twice. i would have loved to have been in conversation with him and to hear some of his stories. so that would be the perfect dinner table for me. >> i'll tell you, the one justice as much as i admire him but i would not want him as my dinner partner and that was justice brandeis. one of his friends reported that if you were invited to dinner at the brandeis home you would eat, before and after. [ laughter ] >> i second that decision. [ laughter ] >> well, we've covered a lot

here tonight. before i close i just want to ask my collie panelists is there anything else you'd like to bring up that we haven't talked about? >> what did we forget? ruth? >> i don't know, let's look at our notice. >> i just think we should give claire a round of applause for putting this together. [ applause ] actually, before we close i would like to put a pitch out the the audience tonight. if any of you know of any recipes or anecdotes about supreme court justices and food, please get in touch with me because i am writing a cook book i would also send out a plea to all of you to go to supremecourt history.org where we have supporting materials about the event tonight, more information about the topics covered.

we also have copies of "chef supreme" the martin ginsberg cook book, melvina harland's memoir and justice sotomayor splendid autobiography "my beloved world." we have signed copies of that on our web site, supremecourthistory.org and we have some tonight in the hall. so now please join me in thanking our distinguished panelists for such a fascinating conversation. [ applause ] >> and thank you all for coming. please remain seated while the panelists leave the stage. [ applause ]

>> thank you again for coming, ladies and gentlemen. again, please remain seated until the panel leaves the stage. i do enjoy seeing the fabf i am a history buff. i do enjoy seeing the fabric of our country and how things -- just how they work and how they're made. >> i love american history tv, the presidency, american artifacts, they're fantastic shows. >> i had no idea they did history. that's probably something i'd really enjoy. >> and with american history tv it gives you that perspective. >> i'm a c-span fan.