Boar’s Head Dinner: A URochester tradition that goes way back in time

The dinner was inspired by a 16th-century British legend involving an Oxford University student who (allegedly) was walking through the woods when he was attacked by a wild boar. The student was saved by a well-read classmate who shoved a book featuring Aristotle’s works down the boar’s throat, resulting in the creature’s demise by way of Greek philosophy.

In other versions, such as this recounting in The Oxford Sausage from the 18th century, it is the endangered student who saves himself with his handy book.

Either way, the vanquished beast was brought to the college, and a banquet was held in celebration.

According to an exhibit curated by the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, the idea of the URochester version of the famed dinner originated with mechanical engineering major Theodore Fitch ’35 and Adele Bostwick, the head dietician in Todd Union. In fact, Todd Union was the site of the first dinner held on December 17, 1934. And that month, Rochester Review gave special credit to Todd Union director Carl Lauterbach, Class of 1925, “who was warmly congratulated for successfully inaugurating what should become a colorful tradition of the season.”

The magazine’s wish was granted, with the dinner becoming an annual student-run event thereafter.

The Boar’s Head Dinner begins with a trumpet fanfare and the procession of members of the “Highe Table,” which includes University officials, faculty, and student leaders. “The spelling of the Highe Table is just a fun nod to old English, even though it’s not super accurate,” says Jill Wulfenstein, associate director for programming in Wilson Commons Student Activities. “It just creates a little more fun for the evening.”

All Highe Table guests are dressed in medieval robes and gowns, which the University has rented from a local costume shop since at least the turn of the century. Costumes for student performers are owned by the Student Activities Board and stored throughout the year.

The dinner invocation is traditionally followed by the presentation of an actual boar’s head on a platter. According to a 2004 Campus Times article, students used to fight over possession of the boar’s head, leading then-University vice president Paul Burgett ’68E, ’76E (PhD) to ban the head at the dinner. Burgett eventually allowed a boar’s head, but for many years, one was made from styrofoam.

The highlight of the festivities is the “Reading of the Boar,” in which a faculty member offers a retelling of the medieval legend, often putting his or her own spin on it. In 2017, then-Dean of Students Matthew Burns introduced a character named Evil Matt Burns into the tale—and claimed no relation. In 2023, Amy Arbogast, an assistant professor in the Writing, Speaking, and Argument program, made Taylor Swift the focus as the Boar’s Head scholar travels into the future. He attends Dandelion Day 1989 (1989is Swift’s fifth album). Then, he goes far into the future and sees students traveling across campus by hoverboard. He notices the University has changed its motto from “Ever Better” to “Evermore Better” (Evermore is Swift’s ninth album).

“The joke at the end was that he had traveled to his own Eras Tour, but he called it the Boar-as Tour,” Arbogast says. “I had fun with that one!”

A student organization is honored annually for having the greatest impact on student and community life at URochester. This tradition began in 1996, when the men’s fraternity Delta Upsilon requested that they pass the boar’s head to a student organization. They chose the Social Activities Board, the precursor to the Student Activities Board. Since then, each honoree selects the next year’s recipient. The Muslim Students’ Association was the 2024 recipient.

“I love the passing of the boar,” says 2024–25 Students’ Association president Elijah Bader-Gregory ’26, who has attended three Boar’s Head dinners. “It’s the honoring of a student group that’s giving back to our community in a very noticeable way.”

The medieval-themed menu traditionally consists of a five-course meal served family style, with guests seated at long tables. Each course is preceded by a song from the waitstaff, comprised of student a capella groups.

In the early years, black bean soup, pork roasts, and flaming plum puddings were standard fare. And before changes in the drinking age were made, beer was served. According to the Campus Times, 210 gallons of beer were consumed at the 1976 dinner.

Meliora Catering on the River Campus has prepared the food in recent years. Typical food has included roasted pork tenderloin, turkey breast, mushroom gravy, green beans, and caramelized onions. And, according to Wulfenstein, students may indicate dietary preferences, such as vegan and vegetarian, when ordering tickets.

Anne-Marie Algier ’16W (EdD), the associate vice president for student life and dean of students, has helped plan and host the December dinner for more than a decade. She says it’s one of her favorite URochester traditions.

“It transports us all to medieval times to enjoy a night of music and merriment,” says Algier. “What I love most is that our talented students provide the entertainment—the singing waitstaff, juggling jesters, blaring trumpeters, and more. The dinner builds a special feeling of camaraderie in the University community.”

Bader-Gregory, a double major in economics and political science, walks away each time feeling a sense of community bonding. “It’s held right before finals, and it’s sort of the beginning sendoff to our graduating class, as most of the attendants are seniors,” he says.

And yes, there is a senior privilege. Tickets go on sale a few weeks before the dinner, and are purchased in person. Because there is a limited number of tickets—around 600 maximum in recent years—the line to buy tickets is exclusive to URochester seniors for the first 30 minutes.

The dinner was less than a decade old when a global crisis shut it down.

Melissa Mead, the John M. and Barbara Keil University archivist, says the dinner at Todd Union went on as planned in December 1941, just a week after the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor and the US entered World War II. It also was held in 1942 before being suspended for two years due to the war.

“The dinner made a victorious, if muted, return in 1945, when the Campus newspaper noted it would ‘have a Christmas theme with singing, and would approach the old idea as closely as possible,” Mead says. “Post-war food shortages in 1946 again suspended the feast, and 1947 would at last see the event return to ‘full boar.’”

The annual event would continue uninterrupted until 2020, when it was canceled due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. And it would be a much smaller affair the following year. As a December 5, 2021, Campus Times article recounts, only 250 tickets were sold for the 2021 dinner (about half of the usual attendance) out of caution. Instead of the usual communal long tables headed by a faculty or staff host, there were round tables and no hosts.

The dinner was an all-male event until 1970, when women were admitted for the first time—but only as beer maids serving thirsty singers and guests. One year later, in a letter to the Campus Times titled “Women Point to Sexist Implications,” the University’s Women’s Caucus petitioned to give women equal access to the event. It worked, and the Boar’s Head Dinner has been coed ever since.

The event has evolved over the decades, from a men-only beer-guzzling (and cigar-smoking in years past) banquet to one that is more inclusive of the University community. The 2024 dinner featured URochester’s first vice president of student life, John Blackshear, who enthusiastically led dinner guests through several songs, encouraging them to be extra loud during the singing of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

In the early 1990s, the Student Activities Board began moving away from the singing of traditional Christian carols in favor of sectarian songs, a move criticized in a November 11, 1993 editorial, which noted “SAB wants to be PC (politically correct) and appeal to a wider audience by eliminating songs with references to the historical nature of Christmas.”

Bader-Gregory says he remains astonished at the impact and uniqueness of this dinner decades after it began. “It’s really an amazing event,” he says. “I mean, where else can you go to a medieval dinner on your college campus in the middle of December?”