Why it Works: Blue Cheese
Blue cheese owes its color to a familiar mold: penicillin. The three most common blues are Roquefort (from France), Gorgonzola (from Italy) and Stilton (from England). Up until quite recently, the process of introducing mold to these cheeses was left to Mother Nature. (Blocks of Roquefort were actually held in ancient caves where the mold lived!) Today the mold spores are usually mixed with the milk or the curd during cheesemaking (the mold is not injected as sometimes thought). Enzymes in the mold that eat and digest milk fat are responsible for the unique flavor of blue cheese. Over time, the mold penetrates the cheese causing “veins” to form and the cheese to become crumbly.