[Sca-cooks] Blue Cheese

[Terry Decker]

Possibly neither learned it from the other.  Since cheese making seems to 
begin in the Late Neolithic, it is quite possible that the practice of 
producing blue cheese was invented somewhere else and introduced to France 
and Spain by a third party.

If we have to decide between the two, by the time of the Camino de Santiago 
(earliest references in the 8th Century) blue cheeses were being produced in 
Southern France and that the records of the Camino de Santiago are roughly 
contemporaneous with Einhard's account of Charlemagne and the two yearly 
cartloads of (blue?) cheese from a monastery (believed to be Vabres).  Also, 
Pliny comments upon the cheeses of southern France, but, to my knowledge, 
makes no mention of cheese in Spain.

While the evidence supports Roquefort's claim, lack of evidence does not 
negate Cabrales claim.  Blue cheese appears to predate recorded history in 
the region and there is some evidence that the Camino de Santiago was a 
pagan pilgrimage route before Christianity co-opted it, leaving the 
technology transfer possibility open.  Given regional pride, the endless 
argument will continue.

Bear

----- Original Message ----- 

This surprises me because the never ending issue between Roquefort and
Cabrales is who invented blue cheese. Either French pilgrims from
Roquefort on the Way of St. James learned the art of making it from the
Asturians or the Asturians learned it from them.

Suey