2.78€ X1 Saint-Marcellin
9.72€ X1 Abondance
Coloured cheese; white to ivory colour, regularly marbled with blue to green mould. Intense, balanced, blue taste on the outside. Firm and creamy cheese, sometimes crumbly. Quite a strong smell, which attests its vitality.
4 weeks. Raw or pasteurized milk. The cheese is neither pressed nor cooked. Adding of rennet, mixing, draining, salting, then « piquage » (favouring the development of the blue « veins ».
It is interesting to notice that Auvergne is the only French region to produce five AOC (guaranteed origin) cheeses. Bleu is one of them. Many producers from Auvergne had already been making for many years cheeses that turned blue in quite an anarchic and accidental way in their cellars. In 1854, Antoine Roussel noticed that this blue colour gave his cheeses a « special, pleasant and fragrant » taste.This farmer decided to control its development. After many experiments, he came up with the idea to mix the blue mould of rye bread with « fourme » (a blue-veined cheese). That is why he invented the « piqueuse » and the « piquage » technique.
His cheeses were so successful that soon producers from the whole region started to copy him. This cheese is often used for cooking. It gives salads, endives or nuts an original taste and is delicious when served with beef, in particular with the famous breed from that region.