Mold cheese
Mold cheese is cheese whose taste, consistency and appearance are largely determined by the growth of a specifically applied noble mold .
In the narrower sense, cheese is called mold cheese in which mold not only grows on the outside (as with Camembert ) but also on the inside (e.g. Roquefort ).
Of the 130,000 species of fungi, only a few can be used for dairy farming and are therefore suitable for the production of cheese as ripening organisms. These mushroom species used in the dairy industry differ from harmful cultures in that they only give the cheese their specific aromas, but are completely harmless to the human organism. They are therefore classed as noble mushrooms and are classified as particularly valuable. In order to promote the formation of mold, certain types of cheese are pricked with broad needles during the ripening process, i.e. pricked, so that oxygen can penetrate the cheese through the needle channels and promote and accelerate the formation of mold.
In particular, the group of green and blue cheese is considered the noblest culture. It was always represented by the countries of origin as a royal class. Examples are England's “ Blue Stilton ” or France's “Roquefort”. The noble mold culture is mostly referred to as Penicillium . In modern cheese production, this is added in liquid form. The mushroom formation is then promoted and accelerated by pricking. Originally the mold was cultivated in special bread, which was dried, pulverized and added to the curd.
A distinction is essentially made between blue , red and white mold cheese . Strictly speaking, the red mold is not a mold, but a bacterium .
