Roquefort cheese

Herds of the thin-coated Lacaune sheep struggle to find the meager nourishment, which gives their milk its fine taste. Shepherds from the whole of Aveyron as well as other regions in the south and even the Pyrenees, nowadays work for the large cooperative and ten other cheese firms in the area between Millau and Saint-Affrique.

That the most famous blue-veined cheese in France can mature only there is due to a primeval catastrophe: the north eastern edge of the limestone massif of the Combalou collapsed and formed a gigantic heap of rubble. In its interior, however, natural caves remained, in some cases of considerable size. The porous limestone guarantees 95 percent humidity in the caves, and the cool air penetrating through the cracks in the rock maintains a constant low temperature. All this means ideal conditions for the penicillium roqueforti, which spreads across the walls of the caves.

Nowadays minute quantities of this mold are introduced into the thousands of liters of milk in the dairies themselves, before the cheese production even begins. The cheeses are therefore infected before they reach the maturation cellars. Before the unwrapped cheeses are loaded onto solid oak frames for their first phase of maturation, they are perforated by means of nail boards. In this way a system of air passages is created within each cheese, allowing space for the mold to develop unhindered for a month.

Before it can gain too much of an upper hand, however, the cheeses are covered with their familiar coats of tin foil. They are then transferred to the cooler climes of the Combalou. The mold has at least another three months to spin its web of veins, although hihger quality cheeses may be allowed up to a year or more.

The younger Roquefort cheese is paler, whereas its mold is darker in color and less in quantity. As the maturity increases the cheese takes on an ivory tone. The mold gains more and more ground and assumes that highly desirable bluish-green hue. The cheese has now acquired its full taste. It is delicious when eaten with a naturally sweet muscatel wine from the south, especially the Muscat de Rivesaltes.