Unusual product- blue cheese, was discovered completely by accident.
Its homeland is the town of Roquefort in France. It is believed that this product was first made by a shepherd.
Inadvertently, he left a piece of cheese in the cave. Returning a few weeks later, he found his cheese there, which was covered with blue mold. The famous Roquefort in its modern form became widespread after 1070.
However, blue cheese is mentioned by the ancient figure Pliny the Elder.
Exclusive varieties of the product are obtained using special technology. In ancient times, cheese makers left bread in caves for 6 months so that it would become moldy.
Nowadays, mold is obtained in laboratory conditions. Later it is sprayed over pieces of cheese. For better distribution fungi make holes in the cheese. After the mold has worked well on the product, it acquires a unique taste. Not only the French, but also other nations have their own blue cheese. For example, Italians make gorgonzola mold cheese.
Many of us know that blue cheese is considered a delicacy. What is so unusual about this cheese? It turns out that real cheese with mold are produced only in France.
Other countries also do something similar, but the most best cheeses- specifically made in France.
Blue cheese and its legend
Interestingly, there is a beautiful, romantic legend about blue cheese. One day, a young man, a shepherd, on the slope of Mount Combalou (not far from the village of Roquefort) sat down to have a snack of cheese and bread. At this time, a beauty passed by. The young man wanted to meet the girl and rushed after her, but there was no trace of her.
Returning to the cave a few days later, he saw the cheese left behind, covered with mold. The young man tried it and was pleasantly surprised: the cheese became completely new taste. So, according to legend, appeared Roquefort cheese, one of perhaps the most famous blue cheeses.
Where is blue cheese made?
It is clear that these are just legends. But in fact, blue cheeses have rich history. Roquefort cheese is produced in caves in the Rouergue region of France. If you find cheese from another manufacturer on store shelves, then you are looking at something other than an ordinary fake.
The fact is that Roquefort cheese is produced in relatively small batches, because... There is not so much space in caves, and its cost is several times higher than its analogues. It is not at all necessary that such cheeses will be less tasty than real Roquefort.
Is mold in cheese harmful?
Many people unknowingly claim that mold used in production is harmful to health. This is wrong. Penicillium roqueforti mold is completely harmless the human body, it just sounds similar to penicillin. It is one of the most important factors that gives cheese an original, incomparable taste.
Types of blue cheeses
In addition to Roquefort, there are also varieties of blue cheese such as Stilton, Gorgonzola and others.
Blue cheese - Gorgonzola
Gorgonzola, like Roquefort, is one of the most famous varieties blue cheese. Italy (more precisely, the regions of Piedmont and Lombardy) is considered its homeland. These two cheeses are very different in taste, because... Italians use sheep's milk to produce cheese.
In addition, manufacturers also use different kinds mold. If in Roquefort it is Penicillium roqueforti, then in Gorgonzola it is Penicillium glaucum and two types of bacteria Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus. While the cheese is ripening, metal rods are inserted into the mass to ensure good ventilation. The ripening time for Gorgonzola is about four months. It is known that the Gorgonzola variety is more than 200 years older than Roquefort.
Gorgonzola has a copy called Bavaria blue.
Blue cheese - Stilton
Stilton cheese comes from England, from the counties of Lesteshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Cheese of this variety is produced only from pasteurized cow's milk. It is aged for at least 9 weeks.
There are 2 types of English stilton - blue (the most popular) and less known - white stilton. Unlike other cheeses, in the total mass of cheese there are many passages made by mold.
In order to receive the proud name of Stilton, the cheese must meet a whole range of requirements. Real Stilton cheese must have specific blue veins running from the center.
Stilton cheese is considered the youngest(compared to the two previous varieties we describe) it appeared relatively recently - in the 18th century.
Blue cheese - Danablu
There is also a younger cheese - danabla, which appeared already in the twentieth century. It replaced the expensive Roquefort.
Because Blue cheese has a rather sharp taste and is usually served with tannic wines. Some gourmets and cheese connoisseurs tend to argue that blue cheese is incompatible with wine, with the exception of some types of white wines.
What do you eat blue cheese with?
Before serving, blue cheese is heated until room temperature.
It goes especially well with fruits, vegetables, crispbreads, crackers, etc. The British eat this cheese with vegetables and fresh herbs, and also add it to soups; The Danes use it with bread, the Italians add it to sauce and pizza.
Blue cheese - great ingredient for salads, with the exception of Roquefort cheese. This elite variety Cheese is best eaten as a separate dish.
Is blue cheese healthy? Is there any benefit to it?
- Yes, if you eat it not very often and in small portions. It contains phosphorus and calcium, as well as other vitamins, as well as protein and amino acids necessary for humans.
- Many nutritionists claim that blue cheese also contains beneficial bacteria., which improve intestinal function.
- Turkish scientists made a discovery; it turns out that noble mold contains special substances that can protect the skin from harmful effects sun rays. Eating blue cheese causes the substances to accumulate in the subcutaneous layer, resulting in the body producing more melanin, which significantly reduces the risk of getting sunburn.
Everyone knows that blue cheese is a delicacy, but not everyone has tried this delicacy. This happens for completely different reasons: rejection, fear, lack of awareness, and sometimes a simple lack of money. The average buyer is put off by the smell of cheese, as if spoiled, and the taste is not at all the same as that of pickled or processed cheese. But its connoisseurs will answer that mold cheese is gourmet product, which should be eaten rarely and in small portions. Only then can you truly enjoy this dish, which at first glance causes the most natural disgust.
The history of blue cheese
People learned to cook cheese back in ancient times. In general, mold on products is always an indicator of their unsuitability and deterioration. And only cheese can proudly carry this unique culture. The appearance of blue cheeses became known from ancient legends.
Peasant youth Pietro was tending sheep near the village of Roquefort, which is located on the slopes of the Alps in Italy. Tired of the scorching sun and the restless flock, Pietro decided to take a break and at the same time have lunch. There was not a single tree or bush around the pasture where the young man could hide from the merciless rays of the sun. Therefore, for rest, he chose a small cave located not far from the pasture. In the morning his mother gave Pietro a piece of paper with her. rye bread and a piece of sheep's cheese.
Just as the young man was about to start the meal, he saw the young beauty Daria passing by. Pietro had long been secretly in love with Daria, but he did not dare to approach her. “If I don’t talk to her now, when she’s alone without her mocking girlfriends, I’ll never do it,” thought Pietro and, dropping the bread and cheese, he rushed with all his might after the beautiful maiden.
We do not know how this romantic story ended. But when Pietro returned to the same cave three months later, he found bread and cheese left behind, covered in mold. The young man's hunger was so strong that he greedily attacked the moldy cheese. Imagine Pietro's surprise - sheep cheese acquired a special and unusual taste. That's how cheese came about" ».
It is believed that " "was discovered in 1791 by the Norman peasant woman Marie Harel. According to legend, Marie Harel, during the French Revolution, saved from death a monk who was hiding from persecution, who, in gratitude, revealed to her the secret of making this cheese, known only to him.
This legend of the origin of cheese was first presented to the general public by the mayor of the small French town of Vimoutiers. It all started with the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century, one doctor used Norman cheese to treat his seriously ill patients. In gratitude, the cured patients erected a small monument in his honor near the village of Camembert. And then, after rummaging through the archives, the mayor discovered that at the end of the eighteenth century, a certain Marie Harel lived in the village of Camembert, who sold unusually tasty and unusual-looking cheese at the market. And in 1928, the grand opening of a memorial in honor of the girl and the famous cheese took place on Vimoutiers Square.
Not only the French, but also other nations have their own blue cheese. For example, Italians make mold cheese gorgonzola. And in England they make cheese stilton.
What types of cheese are there?
Blue cheese is made from the very full fat milk, usually cow, but sometimes sheep or goat, like the famous Roquefort.
There are several types of blue cheese:
- With white moldy crust – cheeses of this type are matured in cellars, where “ noble mold"covers all the walls, and at the same time the crust of the cheeses ("Brie" and "Camembert");
- With blue mold – blue mold is also considered noble; it can be seen on the cut of cheese in the form of small inclusions. To prepare such cheese, a fungus is introduced into the head, and in order for the mold to spread better,
additionally, metal needles are inserted (“Gorgonzola”, “Roquefort”, “Bleu de Causse”);
- with washed crust ( red mold ) - this spicy cheese with mold are treated with special fungal cultures that color the crust yellow, orange or red.
Is mold cheese healthy? If you use it in small quantities, Yes. For example, this cheese with garlic is completely safe and ready to eat. He contains a large number of vitamins, phosphorus and calcium, as well as protein and amino acids. Nutritionists say that the bacteria contained in cheese improves digestion. Which is very necessary for most of us, given irregular nutrition and stressful situations.
And Turkish scientists have proven that mold cheeses contain a special substance that accumulates under the skin, promotes the production of melanin and protects the skin from sunburn. That is, as we see, there are still benefits from such cheese. Maybe this benefit is not as great as we would like, but, nevertheless, some positive aspects are still present.
How to eat blue cheese?
The cheese should be at room temperature. It's best paired with crispbreads, crackers, fruits and vegetables, or just bake it in the oven. The British love to add it to soup, the Italians to pizza, and the Danes simply eat it with bread. There may be many options, but the result is always the same - an exquisite dish for real gourmets!
If you visit often European countries, then you should definitely have noticed that such cheese can be found in many establishments Catering. But in our cafes and restaurants they treat such a dish with a little caution.
Is there any harm from such cheese?
Blue cheese is prepared using penicillin fungi, which help cope with many inflammatory diseases, and are not harmful in themselves. But if you consume more than 50 grams of mold cheese daily, then it is likely to develop dysbacteriosis and allergies.
You should not give cheese to small children, it can cause the development of a specific disease - listeriosis.
And in general, it is better to consume mold cheese once a month, then you will never have health problems. And remember that this is important product nutrition, and mold cheese is no exception. Try it various varieties, and you will appreciate it.
Today is the day of legends and stories, a virtual trip to France! While I was enjoying dorblu cheese, the Wind of Wanderings whispered to me how this gourmet joy came to be.
Blue cheese appeared when people already had extensive experience in making cheese from the milk of livestock. 7 thousand years ago it was absolutely clean, without a single speck of mold. Even then, people understood that foods covered with a fungal coating should not be eaten. But what about moldy cheese, as my niece calls it?! Thank you, opportunity, coincidence - as often happens in our lives.
There is a legend that, perhaps, someone knows, and someone will hear for the first time. There is a place in France (and the action, they say, took place there) called Roquefort, also known as Roquefort. The time of action is approximately 2000 years ago. The terrain here is mountainous with an abundance of caves and open green lawns. Shepherds brought small herds of goats and sheep here to graze. One such young French shepherd, tired of listening to the chirping of birds and the monotonous vigil, left his “wards” on the lawn, and he decided to have a snack with the food familiar at that time - water, bread and cheese. He was just about to start eating when his attention was attracted by a beauty who, for unknown reasons, was passing by. What made the shepherd forget about dinner and the flock: the beauty of the charming woman, the ardor of love that gripped him, or all together is no longer known. However, the good fellow ran away after the girl, leaving the food in the limestone cave.
The legend says that he returned back to this place only a month later. In the cave he found the cheese and bread he had left behind, but covered with a bluish moldy coating. Apparently, the hunger was too strong to allow them to throw away even a spoiled product. The cheese with bluish streaks of mold was eaten, but the shepherd was very pleased with its taste, salty and spicy. 
The villagers, having learned from the lips of a shepherd about cheese with amazing taste, they began to leave cooked cheeses and bread in the caves, of which there were many in this area. This is how blue cheese Roquefort appeared, named after this place Roquefort, fragrant, salty, with nutty taste– one of the most famous cheeses in the world.
Already very close to us, blue mold was discovered - Penicillium roqueforti, one of the very few that can be eaten as part of some products.
There is another version of the same legend about the appearance of blue cheese. The shepherd boy was just a boy, tending a flock of goats and sheep here. Intending to eat in a nearby cave, he laid out cheese and bread on a stone. But something happened in the herd, and he was forced to run to check order. He never returned to the cave that day. Later long time upon his return, as in the first version of the legend, he discovered cheese covered with blue mold. The shepherd boy shared the cheese with the monks from the monastery, and they decided to make the product they liked in the same way as the boy said.
One way or another, the famous one appeared french cheese with mold, unknown. However, mention of it is found in the Roman historian Pliny, who lived in 79 AD. And in the 15th century, the residents of Roquefort received from the then monarch Charles VI the right to the monopoly production of blue cheeses under the Roquefort brand name.
Roquefort is not the only noble mold cheese produced in France, but it is a real cheese product can only be tasted here.
Italians have their own cheese and mold pride - italian cheese with mold gorgonzola. The British are proud not only of their cheese, but also of their Stilton mold cheese. Well, the legends are over, and I will certainly continue my cheese travels, but for now I’m enjoying dor blue cheese and white wine.
Not every Russian can even pronounce the names of other cheeses: Camembert, Gorgonzola... But if he tries it, he will never forget it. But there are others: Brie, Roquefort, Dorblue, Danablu, Stilton, Fourme d'Ambert, each with its own history.
The refined and noble taste of these cheeses is not given by the skill of the cheesemaker or the quality of the milk (although we should not forget about them either). The main reason is mold fungi!
Yeast-like fungi
Moreover, there are different types of mold. Roquefort, Gorgonzola and other cheeses of this type are inhabited by Penicillium - blue mold (hence their name - “ blue cheeses"). And brie and others like it are infected, in the good sense of the word, with the yeast-like fungi Geotrichum candidum. But still, this is not just mold, but noble mold - one might say, Mold with a capital M. It, noble mold, protects the cheese from unwanted infection, since it, as it were, occupies the place where harmful microorganisms would like to settle.Emperor Charlemagne, who discovered brie cheese in 774, called it “one of the most gourmet dishes" Bree (who, by the way, is one of ancient cheeses peace) was reputed the best gift among counts and kings. Thus, Blanche of Navarre, Countess of Champagne, had the custom of sending brie as a gift to King Philip Augustus. They call it “cheese of kings”.
Roquefort cheese, according to legend, was “invented” by a young shepherd. He was tending a flock of sheep near the village of Roquefort and in a moment of rest (they say in a cave) he was going to dine on a piece of black bread with sheep’s cheese. And a beautiful young maiden was walking past that cave about some business. The young shepherd left his breakfast and (who would doubt it!) ran after her. How long he was absent and why, history is silent, but when he returned to that cave, he discovered that the cheese was covered with blue mold. However, his hunger did not disappear anywhere, and even during his absence intensified, and he ate this cheese. And I was amazed great taste! So world cooking enriched with Roquefort cheese.
Among the youngest cheeses, one can remember Dorblu; it was invented at the beginning of the 20th century in Germany. The recipe is kept secret. Danish blue cheese Danablu has a history of about 80 years; it was created as an analogue of Roquefort.
Hidden Recipe
Everyone knows that penicillin living in Roquefort is useful. Even before the discovery of this fact, doctors gave blue cheese to patients, hardly understanding why the patients recovered. But it's not just blue cheeses that are healthy. Thus, at the beginning of the 20th century, a French doctor treated seriously ill patients with Normandy cheese covered with white mold. In honor of this doctor, grateful patients erected a monument near the village of Camembert.The history of the appearance of this cheese in the world is no less romantic than the story of the shepherd and Roquefort cheese. Monks knew the recipe for making Camembert from time immemorial, but hid it from hungry peoples, and then one of them allegedly revealed it to his girlfriend Marie Harel because she saved him from death during the French Revolution. Whether it was true or not, in 1928, in the square of the city of Vimoutier, grateful Camembert lovers solemnly unveiled a monument to Marie Harel and their favorite cheese.
And by the way, moldy cheese can enhance a person’s creative inclinations. One day, Salvador Dali, having eaten Camembert for dinner, looked at his unfinished painting and saw a “flowing clock.” This is how “The Persistence of Memory” was written. This fact is stated in the master’s memoirs.
Noble mold adds pungency to the cheese, and the longer the cheese is stored, the spicier it will be. Some cheeses have light taste hazelnuts, like Roquefort.
Camembert has mushroom taste, and brie has a slight smell of ammonia. It's all about the enzymes: as mold grows on the surface or inside the cheese, it releases enzymes that, when combined with the cheese, form a fusion of flavors. The yeast-like fungus Geotrichum has no taste on its own, but what a delicious taste it produces when combined with regular cow's cheese! Have you ever tried penicillin? If so, then you probably didn’t like it, but you’ll eat Roquefort for your dear soul.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to find real blue cheese these days. If you produce, for example, Roquefort according to classic recipe(store for three months in a limestone cave so that the necessary mold appears on it by itself), then this cheese will be in constant shortage. That's why they make cheese like this industrially, infecting cheese with a pure culture of the desired fungus, and Roquefort can be bought at any store.
English note
Of the English mold cheeses, the best known is Stilton, which, unlike other cheeses of this kind, comes in both blue and white. He gained fame through the efforts of innkeeper Cooper Thornhill. This Thornhill was passing through Leicestershire in 1730, and there on a small farm he was treated to blue cheese (which was not yet called Stilton). Delighted with the taste of the product, Thornhill immediately bought the exclusive right to sell the cheese, and he sold it in his Bell tavern in the village of Stilton. Hence the name. And the stagecoach route between London and Edinburgh passed by this inn. Of course, passengers snapped up the cheese as they flew in. Soon all of England knew about the blue Steelton. What about England - all of Europe!Cheese began to be falsified everywhere, the technology was broken, and measures were required to protect the name. Protected: now the name “Stilton” is protected by law, that is, it is prohibited to use this word for any cheese produced outside the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. The irony is that the village of Stilton, which gives the cheese its name, is located in Cambridgeshire, and Stilton cheese cannot be produced there.
Italy produces Gorgonzola blue cheese, named after a small village near Milan. Locals They claim that the recipe has been known to them for more than a thousand years. As if they had previously produced stracchino cheese (translated from Italian as “tired”) from the milk of cows tired from the long journey from the mountains. And then a certain cheesemaker, whose name has not gone down in history, once violated the technology, and his cheese ripened with mold in it. Residents were delighted and began to completely violate the technology, and at the same time the copyright of the unknown cheese maker.
So don't be afraid of moldy cheeses! History shows that no one has ever died from them, but they were used as medicine...
Cook in Russian
In Great Russia, not only blue cheese, but even ordinary hard cheeses didn't do it. Here the soil is poor, the winters are long, the period of livestock stabling is longer than in Europe, there is less feed, and there is no milk yield. Russian peasants often kept little cows not for milk, but for manure, as fertilizer.They drank milk, of course, and stewed it, and made cottage cheese out of it. And Russian cheeses were ripened from cottage cheese using the “raw” method, without heating. They were pressed and seasoned, holding their shape tightly. Until now, what we bake from cottage cheese is called syrniki; Cottage cheese called “homemade cheese” is still sold in stores.
Peter I “infected” Russia with European cheeses. After him, the people ate their usual Russian cheese, and the nobles ate hard imported cheese or one made here by the Dutch. It was then that he came up with the paradoxical word “cheese factory”: cheese comes from the word “raw”, and if it was cooked, then what kind of “raw” is it?
The first domestic cheese factory, which filled the whole country with its cheap cheese, appeared in our country at the end of the 19th century. Nikolai Vereshchagin, who managed it (by the way, the brother of the famous battle painter), formulated the task as follows: “Teach the Russian peasantry to cook cheese and churn butter in the European manner.” Well, they learned to imitate Europe, but traditional Russian cheese disappeared.
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