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Roquefort cheese
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A round wheel of cheese with a wedge cut out sits on a blue wooden surface, overlaid with large text reading How It's Made and very light blue question marks in the background.
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Roquefort cheese
Roquefort cheese

blue cheese

food
Also known as: blue-veined cheese
Written and fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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Blue cheese and lunch meat soda flavors? Wally's teases weird drinks • Oct. 22, 2026, 1:55 PM ET (Indianapolis Star)

blue cheese, any of several cheeses marbled with bluish or greenish veins of mold. Important trademarked varieties include English Stilton, French Roquefort, and Italian Gorgonzola.

How Is Gorgonzola Cheese Made?
How Is Gorgonzola Cheese Made?Genuine Gorgonzola cheese bears a G printed on its packaging.
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Most blue cheeses are made from cow’s milk, but Roquefort is made from the milk of the ewe. Spores of species Penicillium roqueforti are mixed with either the milk or the curd. The mold, during the three to six months of ripening, grows both in small, irregular, natural openings in the cheese and in machine-made perforations. Roquefort and some Gorgonzolas are ripened in caves, the stable, moist atmosphere of which imparts a distinctive character to the cheeses.

A round wheel of cheese with a wedge cut out sits on a blue wooden surface, overlaid with large text reading How It's Made and very light blue question marks in the background.
How Is Cheese Made?If Wisconsin was a country, it would rank fourth in the world in cheese production.
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Blue cheeses may be soft and creamy or crumbly in texture, with a characteristically sharp, piquant flavour. They are often quite salty but should not be overly so, nor bitter. Well-known blue cheeses in addition to those mentioned above include Bleu de Bresse and Bleu d’Auvergne (France), Danablu (Denmark), Blue Cheshire (England), and several produced in the United States.

Slices of lemon pie topped with meringue.
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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Meg Matthias.