Blue Cheese

Blue cheese or bleu cheese is cheese made with cultures of the mold Penicillium, giving it blue spots or veins. This carries a distinct smell, either from that or various specially cultivated bacteria. Some blue cheeses are injected with spores before the curds form, and others have spores mixed in with the curds after they form. Blue cheeses are typically aged in a temperature-controlled environment such as a cave. Blue cheese can be eaten by itself or can be spread, crumbled or melted into or over a range of other foods.

Blue cheese is believed to have been discovered by accident when cheeses were stored in natural temperatures and moisture-controlled caves which happen to be favorable environments for many varieties of harmless mold. It was moist in the cave so the mold would form. According to legend, one of the first blue cheeses, Roquefort, was discovered when a young boy, eating bread and ewes' milk cheese, abandoned his meal in a nearby cave after seeing a beautiful girl in the distance. When he returned months later, the mold (Penicillium roqueforti) had transformed his cheese into Roquefort.

Gorgonzola is one of the oldest known blue cheeses, having been created around AD 879, though it is said that it did not contain blue veins until around the 11th century. Stilton is a relatively new addition, becoming popular sometime in the early 1700s. Many varieties of blue cheese that originated subsequently, such as the 20th century Danablu and Cambozola, were an attempt to fill the demand for Roquefort-style cheeses that were prohibitive due to either cost or politics.

Text taken from : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_cheese