Blue cheese mold would form. According to legend, Roquefort was discovered when a youth, eating a lunch of 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 879 AD, though it is said that it did not actually 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
Blue cheese 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. Similarly to other varieties of cheese, the process of making blue cheese consists of six standard steps, as well as further additions that give this blue-veined cheese its unique properties. The first step is acidification where a starter culture is added to milk in order to change lactose to lactic acid, thus changing the acidity of the milk and turning it from liquid to solid. The next step is