The first time I tasted Roquefort cheese, with its green-blue veins and super-pungent odor, I was hooked. If you appreciate cheese that tastes like cheese, that punches you in the mouth like cheese, and demands a full-bodied red wine to cut its mind-altering strength in half, then perhaps you’ve had the same experience.
If so, then a visit to the town for which the world-famous sheep’s milk cheese is named is a must.
Not for nothing is it the second-most consumed cheese in France after Gruyère. Also known as “the king of cheeses,” Roquefort absolutely insists upon itself. It’s not a cheese for the faint of heart.
It is, however, a cheese for the ages. Roquefort was a favorite of Charlemagne’s. Casanova swore by its aphrodisiac effects – a deal ideally sealed by a strong red wine. It’s the first cheese to have been granted a certification of appellation d’origine controlee, or AOC, ensuring that it’s produced under a strict set of conditions and within the geographically-unique caves of the Combalou mountain in France’s midi-Pyrénées.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Forbes
