cheesecake, originally a cooked pastry tart with a filling of soft cheese, eggs, spices, and sometimes honey, has evolved over the centuries into a nearly infinite variety of cakes whose creamy filling may be baked or unbaked on a sponge, cookie, or pastry base. The precise origin of cheesecakes remains unknown, but cakes containing cheese were served to athletes in Greece at the first Olympic Games in 776 b.c.e. The ancient Greeks enjoyed a layered pastry of goat’s cheese and honey called plakous; Athenaeus lists a wide range of cheese-enriched cakes in the Deipnosophists. See ancient world; athenaeus; and placenta.
