Oser Communications Group

6 The Cheese Guide BY LORRIE BAUMANN It wasn't so long ago that the blue cheese you found in your local grocery came in a tub of crumbles or in a bottle of creamy salad dressing. While you'll still find Roquefort salad dressing and Gorgonzola crumbles in the refrigerated cases, it's more and more likely that you'll also find wedges and wheels of moldy goodness in gourmet groceries as blue cheese comes back to the cheese board. "Blue sales in the U.S. are up again over year prior by about 2.2 percent," said Jeff Jirik, Swiss Valley Farms Vice President of Quality and Product Development. "That's great news for those of us who make and love American artisanal, natural cheese." Swiss Valley Farms, Caves of Faribault Swiss Valley Farms is a Midwest dairy co-op that's also the parent company of Caves of Faribault, which produced the first commercial American blue cheese in 1936. The history of American blue cheese is intimately tied to Minnesota, and Caves of Faribault in particular. In the 1920s, University of Minnesota food scientists began trying to develop a cheese that would rival Roquefort. They were making cheese out of cow milk and aging it in St. Peter sandstone caves when the French took notice. "In 1925, the French declared it 'bastard blue,' and that's what led to the first PDO," Jirik said. "It was because of the blue cheese made in St. Paul." Food scientist Felix Frederiksen came onto the scene at Caves of Faribault when he decided to venture into commercial cheese production. He'd seen sandstone caves used in France for aging Roquefort, so he started looking for a sandstone cave that he might be able to use for the same purpose. He traveled into Minnesota by train, and when the train stopped at Faribault, he couldn't help but notice the St. Peter sandstone bluffs directly across from the train station. Even better, the bluffs already had a cave, which had once been used as a cool environment for beer storage until Prohibition shut down the brewery in 1919. Frederiksen set up shop in the abandoned Caves of Faribault and operated it as an aging facility for America's first commercial blue cheese until 1965, when he sold it. The Caves of Faribault went through a couple of changes of ownership before Jirik and two partners bought the facility in 2001, and then it became part of Swiss Valley Farms in 2010. Today, both Swiss Valley Farms and Caves of Faribault make award-winning blue cheeses and gorgonzola. AmaBlu ® Blue Cheese is a 75-day-old cave-aged blue cheese that's sold in convenient exact weight crumbles and wedges. Its tangy taste profile makes it a good choice for sprinkling on a salad or laying over a burger. AmaGorg ® Gorgonzola Cheese is aged a minimum of 90 days and has a sharper flavor but is a little less acidic than AmaBlu. AmaBlu St. Pete's Select blue cheese is a super premium cheese aged more than 100 days and available only in limited quantities. Rogue Creamery Rogue Creamery is another cheese company with a respected legacy in blue cheeses. The company started thinking about blue cheese during World War II, when the company was providing millions of pounds of cheddar for the war effort, and Tom Vella, the creamery's founder, thought what we all think after we've eaten no cheese but cheddar for the duration of a world war: A piece of cheese is still wonderful, but it's time for something a little different. He created Oregon Blue, the West Coast's first cave-aged blue in 1954. Oregon Blue successfully carried the blue flag for Rogue Creamery until 1998, when Ig Vella, Tom's son, created Oregonzola in honor of his father's hundredth birthday. New owners David Gremmels and Cary Bryant took ownership of Rogue Creamery in 2002 with a handshake promise to keep the plant open and its staff employed. "Ig continued on as Master Cheesemaker and mentor," said Francis Plowman, Rogue Creamery's Director of Marketing. "The tradition and path was laid down to develop expertise for blue cheese and to create new varieties." Gremmels and Bryant took those two blue cheeses and ran with them, expanding the line to nine with a tenth expected to come out some time in 2016. In 2003, Rogue River Blue won the award for Best Blue Cheese at the World Cheese Awards, and that led to the cheese becoming the first raw milk cheese to be exported into the

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