"roquefortsalad" news and stories

Roquefort. Photo: Furey and the Feast, Flickr

This summer Slashfood blogger Max Shrem is apprenticing at renowned Paris cheese shop Fromagerie Trotté. In 'Le Cheese Course,' Max will share his impressions and opinions of French cheese à la francaise!

In the United States, Roquefort -- which has undergone quite the year in the press -- most frequently winds up in salads. Stateside cheese shops usually carry just one or two varieties.

In Paris, however, the stinky blue fromage is a staple; it's nearly impossible not to find several varieties at local supermarkets and an abundance at the fromageries, where varieties range from mildly spicy and sweet to pungent and creamy.

Three main factors cause this: the specific culture of Penicillium roqueforti (the fungus used to create the blue veins in the cheese) used; the types of caves and the quantity made. There's a bit of mystique, too: "What distinguishes one strain of Penicillium roqueforti from another one is part of the cheesemaker's secret," says Mme. Barthélémy, fromagère at Paris's Barthélémy cheese shop, which sells a to-die-for artisanal Roquefort.

Five fave Roqueforts after the jump.

Each Wednesday, we round up the New York Times dining and wine section, making it easy for you to pick out the recipes you want to investigate further and pointing out the articles you might want to skip (I'm not much of a wine person myself, so I tend to skip those articles in favor of ones having to do with seasonal cooking and baking). The thing is that the New York Times has an awful lot of good food content outside of their Wednesday section and this week there is a particular embarrassment of riches.

For instance, did you know that the world of Portuguese Bacalhau (also known to English speakers as salt cod) is going through a massive shift as more and more people switch from soaking their own to buying pre-soaked, frozen cod? It's a Christmas staple (the article compares it to the Thanksgiving turkey in the U.S.).

In the magazine over the weekend, poet and writer Nick Laird offers up a thoughtful and introspective essay about a salad of Roquefort cheese and iceberg lettuce that he ate in Greece as a teenager, on vacation with his then-girlfriend, and the way in which it began the process of expanding his palate and perspective on the world. Jill Santopietro has dedicated the third installment of her video podcast Tiny Kitchen to her own version of a Roquefort salad.

Also included recently are a French Chocolate Tour, Helsinki's Food Revival and a discussion of how tiny or elderly kitchens should not get in the way of a cook's ability to produce good food.