Cheesy Christmas 13: Stilton

On one hand I was glad to finally be able to say that I’d tasted Stilton cheese, you see, there was a time when we were reading about it on a near-daily basis!

Reading about Stilton cheese you say?

Well… sort of. You see when our kids were small, there was a series of cartoon books about an intelligent mouse names Geronimo Stilton and our kids LOVED him. He was always going on a new adventure with his clumsy cousin, Trap, his adorable (and adored) nephew Benjamin and his always-there-to-save-the-day sister Thea (How DOES one pronounce that name? The jury’s still out).

So you see… we were no strangers to the existance of Stilton cheese, but today would be our first taste…

Reminder / Disclaimer

Just a reminder that for days 11-16, as I mentioned on Day 11, while the posts appear in order on the blog there was actually an interruption for a couple of days. Today’s cheese was tasted on day 16, and I’m posting about it a couple of days after that to get caught up.

Here’s what our little cheese tray looked like on Day 16 before diving in.

Day #13: Stilton

Name: Stilton
While the name would make one believe that it was made / discovered for the first time in the town of Stilton, in Cambridgeshire, that wouldn’t be quite correct. It was made in the region, but was mass marketed on a wide scale from Stilton when the owner of the Bell Inn discovered it and obtained exclusive marketing rights. It is in fact a blue cheese and made using Penicillium roqueforti bacterium to give it the well-known taste of blue cheese. And yes… the name of the bacterium is the same as in Rocquefort blue cheese.
Region: In order to be called Stilton cheese, it can only be made in the three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, using pasteurised local milk.
Milk: pasteurized Cow’s milk
Our Score: 1.3 / 5
So things don’t appear to be going too well for the cheeses this year. Stilton (despite the cute mice in the cartoons) is not very appealing. We are not necessarily anti-blue-cheese people. Sure it’s not our favourite, but we’re not dead set against it either. That being said, comments like “violent”, “VERY strong” and “It ravages the mouth” were heard around the table.