the.com/blue cheese
the cheese that went moldy and got a Michelin star for it
means A cheese deliberately ripened with edible blue-green mold (typically Penicillium), giving it sharp, salty, pungent veins running through a creamy body.
from "Blue" for the visible mold veins, "cheese" from Old English cīese, ultimately Latin caseus. The food itself is far older than the English phrase: the marbling comes from Penicillium molds, named for their brush-like spores (Latin penicillus, "little tail" or paintbrush). The famous origin tale—a French shepherd abandoning bread and cheese in a cave near Roquefort, returning to find both gone moldy and delicious—is folklore, but it captures the real mechanism: damp caves rich with mold spores were where these cheeses naturally took on their character.
- the mold
- Penicillium, cousin of the antibiotic that saved millions
- origin
- likely born from cheese forgotten in caves
- roquefort law
- French king Charles VI protected its name in 1411
- the veins
- cheesemakers pierce wheels so mold can breathe
- smell science
- its funk shares compounds with sweaty feet
roquefort — french blue cheese from roquefort-sur-soulzon with protected designation since 1925
gorgonzola — italian blue cheese from lombardy and piedmont, protected since 1996
stilton — english blue cheese from the east midlands, protected designation since 1996
danish blue — created in denmark in 1927 as an alternative to french roquefort