May 24

5 Things You Didn’t Know about Cheesecake

  1. Cheesecake is a beloved dessert around the world. While many assume that it has its origins in New York, it actually dates back much further. Let’s go back over 4,000 years to ancient Greece.
  2. The first “cheese cake” may have been created on the Greek island of Samos. Physical anthropologists excavated cheese molds there, which were dated circa 2,000 B.C.
  3. Just in time for the Summer Olympics, in Greece, cheesecake was considered to be a good source of energy, and there is evidence that it was served to athletes during the first Olympic games in 776 B.C. Greek brides and grooms were also known to use cheesecake as a wedding cake.
  4. Cream cheese was an American addition to the cake, and it has since become a staple ingredient in the United States. In 1872, a New York dairy farmer was attempting to replicate the French cheese Neufchatel. Instead, he accidentally discovered a process that resulted in the creation of cream cheese.
  5. Three years after that, cream cheese was packaged in foil and distributed to local stores under the Philadelphia Cream Cheese brand. The Philadelphia Cream Cheese brand was purchased in 1903 by the Phoenix Cheese Company, and then it was purchased in 1928 by the Kraft.