foodha for thought – menuism blog

Your nose knows when a pungent cheese is heading your way and blue cheese definitely violates whatever “smell” laws are out there.  However as you eat out, you may notice blue cheese is being served on a more regular basis at your favorite restaurant.   So I present to you 10 Things You Might Like to Know About Blue Cheese.

Moo, Baa or Bleat: Blue and blue-green cheeses can be made from most cheese bases, whether the milk is from a cow, sheep, or goat.

Moldy Goodness: Those striations of color, usually blue, sometimes green, sometimes grey, sometimes even violet, are actually molds–usually of the strain Penicillium roqueforti–that are added to the cheese and actually feed on the proteins in the ripening cheese, which in turns creates the colors striations.

The Sheperdess Did It: The earliest legend about how blue cheese came to be is  that a shepherdess left her lunch of cheese curd and rye bread in a cave, and when she returned to find it weeks later, she discovered blue cheese.

A Wonderful Accident: There’s a lot of myths and legends about how blue cheese was discovered; however, most sources seem to think that it was just pure accident.  Early cheeses used to be stored in caves, which inadvertently served as a temperature and moisture controlled environment that was favorable to the many varieties of mold that grew on the cave walls. The presence of the mold and the cheese in close proximity to each other affected the flavor, texture and is the reason for the appearance of the colorful mold striations in the cheese itself.

Skewers and Curds: Even in present times, cave-produced blue cheese is still happening, but if having a cave is not an option, there are other means when it comes to making blue cheese.  In modern blue cheese production, the mold comes from a highly controlled “starter” batch. Smaller artisanal or at home cheese makers may get their mold  from a previous batch of cheese and  then by poking the ripening cheese with long skewers, it creates a series of air-pockets in which the oxygen-loving molds can grow and thrive.  However, to maintain a quality product with a consistent look and feel, larger cheese companies will use modern production methods which involve mixing the mold with the curds before they’re pressed, so no skewering is involved.

A Tasty Threesome: The three oldest and the most well-known of the blue cheeses are Roquefort, Gorgonzola and Stilton.  Roquefort is made of sheep’s milk blue from southern France and is known for being crumbly, sweet and moist.  Gorgonzola is comprised of northern Italian cow’s milk blue and is sweet and creamy. Finally, Stilton is cow’s milk blue from Central England and is firmer and spicier. Of the three, Gorgonzola is one of the oldest known blue cheeses, having been created around 879 AD, though it is said that it did not actually contain blue-veins until around the 11th century.

A Rose By Any Other Name: In the European Union many blue cheeses such as Roquefort, Gorgonzola, and Stilton are, like wine, a protected designation of origin, meaning they can bear the name only if they have been made in a particular region in a certain country.

The Toes Have It: Even compared to other cheese, the pungency of blue cheese can be off the chart. The smell is due to the types of bacteria encouraged to grow on the cheese; for example, the bacterium brevibacterium linens, responsible for the pungent smell of many blue cheeses, is also the cause of human foot odor.

Can I have Buffalo Wings with my Blue Cheese Dressing? Most people equate blue cheese with buffalo wings; however, other uses include being crumbled into a salad, used as a dressing for raw vegetables, melted over hamburgers, made into sauce to pour over lamb, used to flavor a risotto or polenta or broiled over cooked vegetables and so much more.

Blues and the Sweet Stuff: Blue cheeses actually pair better with dessert wines because the dessert wines actually balances the saltiness of the cheese.