In just over a week, we’ll be celebrating Shavuot with cheesecake. You may assume it would have its roots in the recent past, but the first recorded recipes show the dairy-based delicacy has been around far longer.
The first cheesecake was developed in ancient Greece, around 2000 BC, where it was served at weddings. Made from honey, cheese and wheat, it was also believed to be a good source of energy so was also prepared for athletes competing at the first-ever Olympic Games in 776 BC in Olympia.
The baked cheesecake you find today in Greece may not be so different from one baked from those first recipes but it moved on to other countries where it was transformed in countless ways.
The ancient Romans conquered Greece in 146 BC and tweaked the recipe — adding crushed cheese and eggs — which they served warm as ‘libuma’ cheesecake. In one of his essays, Cato the Elder describes a version made with layers of bay leaves.
As the dessert travelled through Europe, numerous further variations were developed but it wasn’t until Medieval times that cheesecake was re-invented again as a type of tart with a pastry base. And today, there are countless variations — from trendy Basque cheesecake and the ubiquitous New York baked cream cheese option to a range of no-bake treats and the visually striking bright purple Filipino ube cheesecakes.
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How long have we been celebrating Shavuot with it? Well, Jews would probably have first tasted the cake in Greek-occupied Palestine, or else after the Roman victory, but it wasn’t until relatively recently that it was really taken on by our community. Claudia Roden asserted that cheesecake was one of the first foods that Jews assimilated from their Central European neighbours and the late food writer Gil Marks claimed that the tradition of Jewish cheesecake dates took off in the States in the 1930s with Ashkenazi eateries like Ruben’s Restaurant or Lindy’s on Broadway — spurred along by the invention of cream cheese by a New York dairyman.
But as usual with Jewish traditions, there are plenty of competing explanations for why we eat cheesecake on Shavuot. One practical explanation is that Shavuot falls in late spring or early summer, around the time when cows, sheep and goats are giving birth so farmers would have plenty of milk available. How do you use up all the milk? Make cheese and bake cheesecakes.
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A more prosaic reason is that Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah, when Israelites were promised a land ‘flowing with milk and honey’, so how better to celebrate than a cheesecake drizzled with melting honey? Another idea is that since the giving of the Torah’s included new dietary laws with prohibitions on eating meat, Jews chose to focus on dairy until the business of Kashrut had been worked out.
And let’s not forget another Hebrew name for Mount Sinai is as Mount Gavnunim, etymologically related to gevinah which - you guessed it - means cheese. And, finally, the numerical reason given is that the Jews spent 40 days in the desert, Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai, there were 40 days praying for forgiveness for the Golden Calf, and the Hebrew word for milk is chalav - which also has a value of 40.
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I’ve eaten more than 40 cheesecakes over the last 40 days researching a cheesecake cookbook. In Covid lockdown I published a collection of Jewish chocolate recipes and promised I’d never, ever, ever do another cookbook. Why? Because cookbooks are sheer hell. Every recipe has to be tested and retested. Each page needs to be beautifully designed with mouth-watering photos. The weekly double page cookery spreads in the JC are probably the most time-guzzling spreads in the whole paper.
But then I got seduced by a Basque cheesecake. And a knafeh one. And then a baklava one. And Judi Rose, who knows an incredible amount about anything relating to food, waded in to help edit a fundraising collection. More than 50 brilliant cookery writers and chefs donated their recipes. Everyone from Yotam Ottolenghi and Nigel Slater to Angela Hartnett, Josh Katz and JC Food editor, Victoria Prever.
I was delighted to discover that the bake is not an entirely guilty pleasure. In her introduction to the book, Judi Rose explains that the calcium in cream cheese and sour cream supports bone health; fruit toppings add goodness — such as vitamin C in strawberries and potassium in cherries. The flavonoids in chocolate boast antioxidant properties and the eggs in the filling deliver protein and choline for a healthy brain.
So make sure you enjoy it when you emulate those ancient Olympians, and choose an Ashkenazi or Sephardi cheesecake recipe to celebrate Shavuot.
The Ultimate Cheesecake Cookbook: Recipes from Around the World, Green Bean Books is available as an eBook and will be available in print in September.
All royalties are being donated to Chai Cancer Care.
