Thirty times in this one year, Charinus, while you have been arranging to make your will, have I sent you cheese cakes dripping with Hyblaean Thyme. (Celestial honey, such as that of Mount Hymettus we still get from Greece.)

Plato mentioned cheese cake, and a town near Thebes was named for it before Christ was born, at a time when cheese cakes were widely known as “dainty food for mortal man.”

Today cheese cakes come in a half dozen popular styles, of which the ones flavored with fresh pineapple are the most popular in New York.  But buyers delight in every sort, including the one hundred percent American type called cheese pies.

Indeed, there seems to be no dividing line between cheese cakes and cheese pies.  While most of them are sweet, some are made piquant with pimientos and olives.  We offer a favorite of ours made from popcorn-style pot cheese put through a sieve: 

 Pineapple Cheese Cake

2-1/2 pounds sieved pot cheese 1-inch piece vanilla bean 1/4 pound sweet butter, melted 1/2 small box graham crackers, crushed fine 4 eggs 2 cups sugar 1 small can crushed pineapple, drained 2 cups milk 1/3 cup flour

In a big bowl mix everything except the graham crackers and pineapple in the order given above.  Butter a square Pyrex pan and put in the graham-cracker dust to make a crust.  Cover this evenly with the pineapple and pour in the cheese-custard mixture.  Bake I hour in a “quiet” oven, as the English used to say for a moderate one, and when done set aside for 12 hours before eating.

Because of the time and labor involved maybe you had better buy your cheese cakes, even though some of the truly fine ones cost a dime a bite, especially the pedigreed Jewish-American ones in Manhattan.  Reuben’s and Lindy’s are two leaders at about five dollars a cake.  Some are fruited with cherries or strawberries.

 Cheese Custard

4 eggs, slightly beaten 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk A dash of pepper or paprika 3 tablespoons melted butter A few drops of onion juice, if desired 4 tablespoons grated Swiss (imported)

     Mix all together, set in molds in pan of hot water, and bake
     until brown.

 Open-faced Cheese Pie

3 eggs 1 cup sugar 2 pounds soft smearcase

     Whip everything together and fill two pie crusts.  Bake without
     any upper crust.

The Apple-pie Affinity

Hot apple pie was always accompanied with cheese in New England, even as every slice of apple pie in Wisconsin has cheese for a sidekick, according to law.  Pioneer hot pies were baked in brick ovens and flavored with nutmeg, cinnamon and rose geranium.  The cheese was Cheddar, but today all sorts of pie and cheese combinations are common, such as banana pie and Gorgonzola, mince with Danish Blue, pumpkin with cream cheese, peach pie with Hable, and even a green dusting of Sapsago over raisin pie.