Gorgonzola
Flavour Profile
Gorgonzola dolce is creamy, mild, and almost sweet, with gentle blue veining.
Gorgonzola piccante (aged) is sharp, salty, and crumbly, with deep blue-green veins and a serious kick. Two cheeses with the same name.
Health Benefits
Good source of calcium, protein, and certain B vitamins.
High in salt and fat. The blue mould (Penicillium roqueforti) is harmless — it's the same family of mould used to make penicillin.
Buying Tips
Look for Gorgonzola DOP, made only in specific regions of Lombardy and Piedmont.
Dolce should be creamy and spreadable; piccante should be firm and crumbly. Pick based on what you want to do with it.
Storage
Wrap in parchment then loosely in foil. Keep in the fridge.
Does not store well next to milder cheeses — the mould can spread. Keep it in its own corner.
Cooking Uses
Dolce melts gloriously into pasta sauces, risottos, and over steak.
Piccante crumbles onto salads, pizzas, and pairs brilliantly with pears, walnuts, and honey.
Forkin Food Theory
The blue veins are made by Penicillium roqueforti, a mould that's introduced into the cheese as a powder during production.
The cheesemaker then pierces the wheel with thin needles, creating channels for air. The mould needs oxygen to grow, so it spreads along these needle paths, creating those distinctive blue veins.
No piercing, no blue. It's a deliberate, engineered defect that we now consider a delicacy.
Wild & Wonderful
Gorgonzola is one of the oldest blue cheeses on record, dating back to the 9th century in the town of the same name near Milan.
Legend says it was discovered by accident when a distracted cheesemaker left curds out overnight, mixed them with the next day's batch, and a few weeks later found the cheese had developed blue veins.
The accident became the recipe. Most of the best things in food started exactly like that.