nothin Battle Of The Blues | New Haven Independent

Battle Of The Blues

Lucy Gellman Photo

Lifting a creamy, crumbling slice of Roquefort, Elm City Market’s Robin Williams had a love story to tell. It went like this: Once upon a time, in the dry, dark caves tucked away in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France, a shepherd was nibbling his chunk of bread and ewe’s milk cheese and watching his sheep when a lady shepherd walked by.

Say he liked the way she handled her sheep. Say she was beautiful. Or maybe the smell of sheep’s milk hung around her in a tangy perfumed cloud. He followed her, intoxicated, into the countryside; through lush, green grasses, ruby-dotted vineyards and wide-mouthed caves where they could kiss and kiss for hours. When he returned weeks later, his cheese had turned thick and moldy, having intermingled with gorgeous, bacteria-rich spores from the decomposing bread.

Gross, right? To Williams (pictured at the top of the story) and fellow cheesemonger Rebekah Basquette, anything but.

That’s because it’s the story of how Roquefort got its blues. While technology has changed some things about the process of making the cheese, those caves are still beloved, cool and brimming with the smell of ripe, rolling odor. Wednesday night, Williams and Basquette explained the genesis of eight different blues, ranging from mild to strong and spicy, during Bringin’ on the Blues,” the latest session in ECM’s free monthly Cheese 101 workshops. (Read about last month’s here.) While only a handful of attendees braved the sub-zero temperatures, they came as a faithful group, ready to learn what sets blues apart as a stinky, salty, seductive class of their own.

Basquette.

Take Stilton, a traditional and beloved English blue that was Basquette’s gateway to moldy cheese. As she explained how it gets its color — a penetration with stainless steel needles that allow air at the core of the wheel as it ages — another story came to light: her as a young woman, entranced by the briny bite and nutty aftertaste blossoming on her tongue, ready to wash it down with a robust red wine. 

Or take Cashel, a buttery, mild Irish blue that has been made by the same family since 1984. For Williams, eating it is an experience that goes far beyond his tongue’s delight. He can hear a gentle, constant rain falling softly outside, see the lush grass growing in the pastures, the rich milk streaming, still steaming, from cows’ udders. One taste, and attendees saw it too.

Stilton.

Cashel.

Among some crowd favorites — a firm-yet-crumbly Huntsman that combines Stilton and double Gloucester, the Roquefort that still has shepherds swooning, and a Gorgonzola Dolce that turned to cream in one’s mouth — Williams and Basquette also brought out the big guns: a muscled, bold Gorgonzola Piccante, a creamy, wake-me-up fourme d’ambert, and a Point Reyes that attendees, surprised at its immediate punch, conquered in polite, mouse-sized bites punctuated with pear and apple slices.

It was here, deep in their blues — one participant proclaimed the fourme d’ambert and Point Reyes the best, while another suggested that the mildest cheeses had won her over — that attendees found a greater truth about cheese. The curd and the sack and the enzymes; the spores, the air flowing deep into wheels and wheels; all of that is ritual. I am an unwavering, impenitent caseophile, but I do not think I am alone when I say blue cheese is firmly planted in the womb of history. In the blue-green spots on Roquefort and Gorgonzola, the silky, near-white sweat that forms on Cashel as a dust of mold is cut off, the mossy wisps smiling up from a hunk of Stilton, are people, hordes of curd-conscious people from different corners of the globe, and their histories of loving something. 

All that blue? Don’t ever let it get you down again. 

The next Cheese 101, on sheep’s milk cheese, will be held in March. Visit Elm City Market’s Facebook page for more information on this series and their other free classes.

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