PirateJoe
2008-11-03, 20:55
There are few things in life that defy categorization. Indeed, nearly everything we do in life is a means to the end of generalization, and in the process we have become very good at it. We delight in organizing animals, giving them antiquated, italicized names. We revel in the marvel of dividing fruit from vegetables, numbers from letters, arts from sciences. However, despite our best collective efforts to generalize everything out of existence, one item remains a stoic brick wall: impenetrable, uncategorizeable, and yet utterly delicious.
Cheesecake: Cake, pie, or something else entirely?
Perhaps that's what makes the cheesecake so desirable. After all, who among us would be so drawn to cheesecake if it were named cheesepie? Or if it were an actual cake made of cheese? Its name suggests that it is indeed a cake. However, analysis of other varieties of cake, such as birthday, ice cream, or chocolate, will show that cake and cheesecake could hardly be more different. Missing is the lightly sweet, fluffy desert made from eggs and flour. Instead we find ourselves with a desert that is dense, tangy, and lined with graham cracker crumbs.
So if it is not a cake, then what is it? The natural instinct would be to look at the next most popular circular tasty: the pie. The pie provides several tantalizing clues about the cheesecake. Both pies and cheesecakes are made without leavened flour, and both pies and cheesecake are made with a savory crust. Upon cursory examination it seems that yes, a cheesecake is in fact a pie! But wait, do not pies have fillings? Even the more dubious peanut butter, chocolate, and cream pies are simply sweet ingredients placed into a shell of hardened dough. Many of the more legitimate pies also have crust on top of the filling itself! Obviously cheesecake fits neither of these requirements, having crust only on the bottom. The crust of the cheesecake, too, is much different from that of the pie.
What, then, is the solution to this conundrum? The astute among us will note that cheesecake bears stark similarities to the less ubiquitous mousse or flan deserts. These, however, have yet to be fully understood by the scientific community, and it may be many more years before we see a definitive conclusion.
Sources:
[1]Wikipedia
[2]cakes.com
[3]fuck you
Cheesecake: Cake, pie, or something else entirely?
Perhaps that's what makes the cheesecake so desirable. After all, who among us would be so drawn to cheesecake if it were named cheesepie? Or if it were an actual cake made of cheese? Its name suggests that it is indeed a cake. However, analysis of other varieties of cake, such as birthday, ice cream, or chocolate, will show that cake and cheesecake could hardly be more different. Missing is the lightly sweet, fluffy desert made from eggs and flour. Instead we find ourselves with a desert that is dense, tangy, and lined with graham cracker crumbs.
So if it is not a cake, then what is it? The natural instinct would be to look at the next most popular circular tasty: the pie. The pie provides several tantalizing clues about the cheesecake. Both pies and cheesecakes are made without leavened flour, and both pies and cheesecake are made with a savory crust. Upon cursory examination it seems that yes, a cheesecake is in fact a pie! But wait, do not pies have fillings? Even the more dubious peanut butter, chocolate, and cream pies are simply sweet ingredients placed into a shell of hardened dough. Many of the more legitimate pies also have crust on top of the filling itself! Obviously cheesecake fits neither of these requirements, having crust only on the bottom. The crust of the cheesecake, too, is much different from that of the pie.
What, then, is the solution to this conundrum? The astute among us will note that cheesecake bears stark similarities to the less ubiquitous mousse or flan deserts. These, however, have yet to be fully understood by the scientific community, and it may be many more years before we see a definitive conclusion.
Sources:
[1]Wikipedia
[2]cakes.com
[3]fuck you