Early Cheesecakes

Cheesecakes

"...Cheese actually dates back to the earliest domestication of animals, at about 9000BC and it had been made wherever animals produced more milk than people use in fluid form....Archaeologists have established that cheese was well known to the Sumerians (4000BC), whose cuneiform tablets contain references to cheese, as do the Egyptian and Chaldean artifacts. It is as much a staple of the Old Testament as honey and almonds and wine, and is associated with stories of great daring...The Greeks were so fond of cheese that they rewarded their children with it as we give ours candy--and "little cheese" was a special term of endearment. Their Olympic athletes also trained on a diet consisting mostly of cheese....and the island of Samos was noted for cheese-cakes, for which Athenaeus even gives us a recipe: "Take some cheese and pound it, put in a brazen sieve and strain it, then add honey and flour made from spring wheat and heat the whole together into one mass." Wedding cakes of that early era were almost invariably cheesecakes, and at Argos it was customary for the bride to bring little cakes that were roasted, covered with honey, and served to the bridegroom's friends."
---The Cheese Book, Vivienne Marquis & Patricia Haskell [Leslie Frewin:London] 1966 (pages 18-19).

"Every market in Greece sold cheeses to those who could not make their own, and by the fourth century BC the popular fresh white Greek cheeses were being flavored with herbs and spices and baked into all manner of cakes and pies...The Roman Empire used cheese a great deal in cooking....Cato mentions a sauce based on salt which was used to preserve cheese and gives the recipe for a celebration wedding cake, in which the main ingredient was cheese, spiced and flavoured with grape must, fat, aniseed and bay leaves; this was also baked on top of bay leaves which impaired their agreeable aroma to the concoction....Apicus, the foremost Roman gastronome, included a very elaborate dish among his recipes, served cold, in which the cheese was blended with honey, peppermint, watermelon, vinegar and many other ingredients."
---Cheese: A Guide to the World of Cheese and Cheesemaking, Battistotti, Botazzi et al. (pages 12-14).

"Curds were still incorporated in certain cooked dishes which had survived from medieval times. The spiced cheese tarts of that period were continued in tarts of curds which were still known a cheesecakes in the seventeenth century...Fresh curds formed the basis of the filling, supported by eggs, spices and sometimes currants. By the middle of the century, some cheesecake recipes contained neither cheese nor curds, but instead a rich custardy mixture of eggs, butter, flour and unrenneted cream, duly sweetened and spiced....A further development a few decades later was the lemon cheesecake. Its filling consisted of pounded lemon peel, egg yolks, sugar and butter...Orange cheesecakes were made in similar fashion, from the skins of Seville oranges which were first boiled in two or three waters to take off their bitterness."
---Food and Drink in Britain, C. Anne Wilson [Academy Chicago:Chicago] 1991 (p. 172-173).

Cheeseless cheesecakes (sweet, rich custard pies) began to appear in English cookbooks in the 17th century. Chess pie, a popular Southern American favorite, is descended from these.