It’s a recipe simple enough for even the most nervous of cooks: Slather cherry tomatoes, chiles and a block of feta in olive oil. Bake it in the oven. Mix in cooked pasta, basil and garlic.
Simple was exactly what Jenni Hayrinen, a Finnish food blogger, was looking for when she whipped up the creamy, salty dish in 2019. “I was really hungry,” she said. “I craved baked feta.”
Ms. Hayrinen’s recipe and a similar one that another Finnish blogger, Tiiu Puranen, shared in 2018 spurred an online phenomenon in Finland. But the recipe might have stayed local, if not for some Finnish travelers who raved about the trend to an American food blogger, MacKenzie Smith.
“I just remember adding the pasta, taking a bite,” Ms. Smith said. “I was like: This is really good. Why is this so good?”
In January 2021, Ms. Smith uploaded a how-to video for the recipe to TikTok and Instagram. The coronavirus pandemic had turned home kitchens into a source of entertainment, and with restaurants still closed or offering limited service in many places, cooking at home still dominated many evenings.
What happened astounded her: The recipe exploded across the internet, racking up a legion of fans that included food bloggers and A.I. influencers. Some claimed it was the best pasta dish they had ever tried. Others said they had added it to their weekly dinner rotation. The hype even drove a surge in feta sales: Shelves in some stores were temporarily emptied, and feta became one of the top search terms in the Instacart grocery app.
Baked feta has long been a staple Greek appetizer, but why did adding linguine, penne or rigatoni prompt such devotion?
“Visually, it’s iconic right?” Ms. Smith said. “That first smush into that melty feta, it’s satisfying.” The dish offered an elevated twist on comfort food at a time when going to restaurants was a challenge at best, or impossible, she said. She credits the social excitement around the dish with helping her and others get through a difficult time: “It’s cemented its place in American culture,” she said.
More than four years later, Ms. Smith said her recipe for baked feta pasta was still among the most popular on her website.
“It changed my life. I paid off my mortgage, which was just the craziest thing,” she said. Her feelings are complicated by the fact that the recipe was not hers, and she has been careful to give its Finnish creators credit. “I honestly just feel so lucky to have been a part of it,” she said.
In Finland, Ms. Hayrinen has declared Feb. 4 to be “Baked Feta Pasta Day.” Every year, she reposts a series of videos of baking dishes, each with the signature chunk of feta in a bright nest of tomatoes.
“It felt like it was somehow a shared social experience,” she said, reflecting on the height of the baked feta pasta craze. It included one fan whom she considered the ultimate foodie win: Gordon Ramsay, who called the trend “magnetizing” in a 2022 interview with People.
“That is one of my biggest accomplishments, because I don’t think he loves anything,” she said. “I can retire now.”
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