Roquefort Cheese

From the Wikipedia:

Legend has it that the cheese was discovered when a young shepherd, eating his lunch of curds, saw a beautiful girl in the distance. Abandoning his meal in a nearby cave, he ran to meet her. When he failed to catch her, he returned to his now moldy lunch and ate it out of pure hunger.

Roquefort, or similar style cheese, is mentioned in literature as far back as 79 AD, when Pliny the Elder remarked upon its rich flavor. Cheesemaking colanders have been discovered amongst the region's prehistoric relics.

Roquefort is a pungent ewe's-milk blue cheese from the south of France, and one of the most famous of all French cheeses. Though similar cheeses are produced elsewhere, European law dictates that only those cheeses aged in the natural Cambalou caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon may bear the name Roquefort, as it has a protected designation of origin. Roquefort is sometimes known as the "King of Cheeses", a distinction that is also used for the Italian Parmigiano Reggiano, the French Brie de Meaux and the English Stilton.

The cheese is white, crumbly and slightly moist, with distinctive veins of blue mold. It has characteristic odor and flavor with a notable taste of butyric acid; the blue veins provide a sharp tang. The overall flavor sensation begins slightly mild, then waxing sweet, then smokey, and fading to a salty finish. It has no rind; the exterior is edible and slightly salty. A typical wheel of Roquefort weighs between 2.5 and 3 kilograms, and is about 10 cm thick. As each kilogram of finished cheese requires about 4.5 litres of milk, Roquefort is high in fat, protein and minerals such as calcium.