Note 1 — Chapter XXXIII · CHEESE

“The cakes of curd are not thin in this case, but as thick as they are wide. They are stored for months in grottoes hollowed in the heart of a rock, either by nature or by man, in the environs of the village of Roquefort. These grottoes are remarkable for the strong currents of air that circulate through them, and for the coolness of their temperature. During the summer, while the thermometer outside marks thirty degrees,1 it shows but five inside the cheese caves. The difference is that between the heat of an oppressive summer and the cold of a severe winter. It is in the depths of these cold caves that the cheeses acquire their peculiar qualities. The only care given them is an occasional rubbing with salt and a scraping of their surface to remove whatever moldiness may have developed. This moldiness even gets into the inside by degrees, where it forms blue veins. But that is in no way detrimental; on the contrary, the flavor of the cheese gains by the formation of this mold, which is merely another kind of rotting that adds its energies to those of the usual change undergone by cheese. Hence the makers are not content with letting nature produce these signs of moldiness: they hasten the process by mixing with the fresh curd a little powdered moldy bread. The cheese would be better if left to its own working, but this addition accelerates the result, and to-day, alas, in the making of Roquefort, as in so many other branches of industry, there is greater eagerness for quick results than for excellence.