Stilton cheese stocked a generic "British Blue cheese". Other makers have adopted their own names and styles. Other examples of blue cheeses include Gorgonzola cheese of Italy, which is made from cows' milk; and the French cheeses Fourme d'Ambert from Auvergne and made with cows' milk and Roquefort, which is made with ewes' milk. Blue Stilton is often eaten with celery or pears. It is also commonly added as a flavouring to vegetable soup, most notably to cream of celery or broccoli. Alternatively it is eaten with various crackers, biscuits and bread. It can also be used to make a blue cheese
Stilton cheese three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, and must use pasteurised local milk. The manufacturers of Stilton cheese in these counties applied for and received Protected Geographical Status (PDO) in 1996. Stilton cheese cannot be produced in the village that gave the cheese its name. Stilton village is not in the three permitted counties; it is in the administrative county of Cambridgeshire, and in the historic county of Huntingdonshire. The Original Cheese Company applied to Defra to amend the Stilton PDO to include the village but the application was rejected in 2013. To be called "Blue Stilton", a cheese must: