Athenaeus versus Arnold Reuben. If Hollywood could, it would fabricate a bitter rivalry between these two characters in the style of the one it built between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. But, unlike the composers, the two cooks were not contemporaneous, but their lives were 16 centuries apart. The first was the pioneer in writing the cheesecake recipe around 230 AD. The second assured that it was his invention, at the beginning of the 20th century. Perhaps both facts are true.
Popularly, cheesecake is considered to be a typical New York recipe. Americans, a nation built by migrants, have so little legacy that did not originate in one of their native countries that it is almost a pious act to grant them that privilege. But gastronomy historians cling to the fact that cheesecake is a transcript of what the ancient Greeks were already cooking on the island of Samos, at least since 776 BC, when Olympic athletes ate it before competitions. to be full of energy and get the citius, altius, fortius.
Almost three millennia ago, logically, the kitchen had to be rustic, far from the sophistication of the current agri-food industry. The cheesecake – say the experts – would be prepared by grinding a generous portion of dairy mixed with honey and flour. As soon as a compact pasta was obtained, it was left to warm and eaten in portions, just as it is done today.
Like almost everything, the Romans would have inherited it from the Hellenic culture, reforming the cake with the addition of eggs and curdling it in brick ovens. They gave it their own name, libuma, which today is used by those who declare themselves cheesecake purists without further additives.
It is possible to imagine a long historical transition through Europe until the emigrants took it to the United States. The fact is that during the exciting first quarter of the 20th century, a German-born restaurateur named Arnold Reuben appeared in New York, who dared to affirm that he had invented the recipe. That, without messing up, because he also said that he had inspired a more rustic one that he had tried in a rival place. Reuben went down in history for other facts, such as the invention of sandwiches that have come to light (he is still known as the King of the Sandwich in the United States) or that some of his restaurants were frequented by the mafia as a center of conspiracies to alter the league. baseball pro. But the story can be left as a tie between Reuben and Athenaeus.
The truth is that New York today is a mecca for cheesecake lovers. Restaurants compete with each other in providing not just cloud-like spongies to sleep on near the sky, but a dizzying array of flavors: strawberry, chocolate, banana, raspberry, dulce de leche, tiramisu. , with vanilla, with coffee liqueur, with peanut butter... The most strict, however, ensure that the authentic cheesecake should only contain cheese, and a slight aromatic touch of lemon, with its base -that is non-negotiable- of crushed cookies.
The secret of the cheesecake's versatility is that it is made with a variant of cream cheese capable of absorbing a multitude of flavors, as long as it does not add excess water that jeopardizes the firmness of the cake. In each country they use their classics: mascarpone in Italy, feta in Greece, cottage in Germany... But in the history of the consolidation of cheesecake as one of the most successful, easy and tasty desserts to put on the table, it has no place. Undoubtedly the idea of William Lawrence –from New York, yes!–, who in 1872 launched white cream cheese tablets, similar in size to those of butter, but snowy white. They were wrapped in strong aluminum foil and, as a marketing measure, he named them Philadelphia, in honor of an American city that at that time had high quality standards in the agri-food industry.
Philadelphia cheese was so successful that the Phenix Cheese Company bought its rights in 1903. Merging with Kraft twenty-five years later, Philadelphia became everlasting and remains the same to this day (though the endearing foil wrapper has disappeared).
In this 21st century in which gastronomy has reached levels of popularity comparable to those of sports or movie stardom, prominent chefs have taken on the challenge of elevating cheesecake to the top drawer of the podium (taking into account its Olympic origins), refine the result. And if not, tell the Basque Jon García, who abandoned the most renowned restaurants in the country to open a shop in Barcelona selling "gastronomic cheesecakes" with bold flavors such as cabrales, Manchego or dark chocolate. The queues of excited pilgrims that form at the door of his establishment give a good account of the massive interest in cheesecake.
There are variants of our cake in which the skilful blending of different creamy cheeses avoids baking and its risks of failure (too runny, too toasted?), but again, cheesecake purists bet on subjecting the cake to the fire to obtain the authentic buttery and subtle flavor, as well as a mottled crust of different shades of brown.
