Haduken

Queso Azul

by: Ross

Or “blue cheese” as you commoners may know it. I love it and its deliciously bacterial veins of sweet seafoamy green goodness. The idea behind blue cheese is pretty astounding when you really sit and think about it. First you take any old goat or cow cheese and add mold and bacteria — specifically the yogurt bacteria and penicillium mold. This is fascinating to me.

There are many varieties of “blue cheese” — which is a generic name for the group of cheese recognized by their characteristic blue veining. Most of the cheeses have a Protected Designation of Origin. This means, like wine in Europe and bourbon in the USofA, specific cheeses can only come from specific regions. So Gorgonzola comes from the area around Gorgonzola Italy, while Roquefort is made in the region surrounding Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in France (and bourbon must come from Bourbon County, Kentucky).

Roquefort is kind of insane. In order for a cheese to be called Roquefort it must contain the mold found only in the soil of caves in the Roquefort-sur-Soulzon region. Then the cheese must be aged in these specific caves. In the olden days cheese makers set bread out in these caves until they were covered in mold. The mold was then powdered and added to the cheese.

Cheese is so interesting.

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  1. I would have read your post, but I am on the ‘Atkins’ diet.

    jk.

    — vanimal3000 | @

  2. you can’t eat blue cheese if you are pregnant because it can kill the baby
    i thought that was crazy…of course this is one of those things that doctors didn’t tell moms until recently, so most of us probably lived through the blue cheese danger.

    — stephanie anne | @

  3. many poisonous sea creatures like octopi don’t actually produce their venom, but use the insane bacteria that grows in their salivary glands as poison. bacteria is crazy. sorry, slightly off topic.

    — Wolf | @

  4. komodo dragon.

    — midas | @

  5. komodo dragons are awesome. you can get other smaller monitor lizards on petfinder all the time. komodo bacteria is weak, though. like, they will give you a nasty infection if you’re bitten, which may eventually kill you, but check out the blue ringed octopus- they have more like a venom they inject and they have 2- one for food and one for defense. and they’re like 50-11 stronger than cyanide or something. bacteria is awesome. but i have to say lethal bacteria is more interesting to me than cheese bacteria. sorry.

    — Wolf | @

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