The Cheese Doctor Blog

The famous traditional blues are Mountain Gorgonzola, Roquefort, Stilton and they probably all owe their origins to other cheeses.  Gorgonzola to Stracchino, Roquefort to some hard dry cheese, Stilton to some acidic English territorial.  In other words the highly refined blue cheeses we have today are an evolution of other cheeses that were infected with mold and because of the right levels of salt and moisture the mold developed approvingly. Blue cheese were not prime, they have become a mainstream category. 

Then we have the technicians cheeses, Saga, white on blue with added cream, Blue Costello triple cream, Gorgonzola Dolce, fresh young blues that were developed about 60 years ago and others like Bresse Blue.  These cheeses are technicians cheeses, doing things that would not have occurred in nature.  Because of our ability control environments,  our understanding of organisms and the ability to think what if the world of cheese expands beyond the past.

Blue cheeses have evolved into highly predictable and pleasing items utilizing another cheeses spoilage to great advantage.  Most of our blue cheeses are high in salt and big on flavor, but you will find in some other cheeses big flavor often requires some serious reigning in of the flavor mechanism such as mold with salt or it will spoil the host cheese.   Big salt and big flavor sounds a lot like Parmesan to me.  Don’t fear the salt in your cheese, it is an essential part of the process.

Doctor Cheese