Gourmet Italian

photo by Dominick Hundhammer

Everyone has heard of Italy’s incomparable Gorgonzola cheese being used in cooking gourmet dinners.  This is primarily made with cow’s milk and it is a wondrous creamy, piquant cheese that originated around 879 in a little town outside of Milan named … You guessed it!  Gorgonzola!  Today Gorgonzola is a suburb of Milan.

Although the cheese dates back to the 9th century, it wasn’t until about 200 years later than that greenish/blue mold was introduced to the cheese making process quite by accident.  The green veins are actually penicillum glaucum.  Really, the mold in gorgonzola is more green than blue.  The London Stock Exchange is lined with green marble and they refer to it as “Gorgonzola Hall”.

photo credit: stu_spivack

Gourmet Italian chefs use a tremendous number of tasty cheese in almost every course they serve.  Cave paintings tell us that people have been making cheese since about 5000 B.C..  Since ancient sheep, cows and goats only gave milk part of the year – right after they giving birth each Spring – by the middle of Summer their milk had all dried up.  In order to preserve this milk so that they could eat it in the fall and winter, too – they made it into cheese.