I really love blue cheese. I recently bought some pretty mediocre stuff at Costco for the unbelieveably low price of $5 a pound. Now that’s about the same price as run of the mill generic cheddar cheese. It wasn’t bad, just not that good. I’ve been working my way through Trader Joe’s selection, although they just recently tripled the cheese selection at my local store, so it’s going to take a little bit longer. I’ve had Maytag, and I think Pt. Reyes original blue, both of which were excellent.
In any case, the cheese seems to last a pretty long time without going “bad”. Is this because the penicillin already innoculated in the cheese is outcompeting any other molds?
I’ve never tried those particular varieties of cheese, but in my experience of hard blue cheeses such as Stilton, they’ll keep a reasonably long time as whole-rind cheeses, but they do have a peak of ripeness, after which time they’ll either dry out, or will start to liquefy in the centre. In either case, that’s probably going to take years rather than weeks.
But solid, whole-rind hard cheeses will usually last longer just because the maturing process is quite uniform throughout the whole cheese. A whole cheddar cheese, properly stored, lasts pretty much forever.
Cut portions of cheese are a different matter, but again, blue cheeses tend to be more ‘alive’ than hard cheeses - the mould in blue cheese may well outcompete other strains, but it’s still consuming the cheese.
I have purchased blue cheese in the little plastic tubs from the cheese shop in the grocery (don’t know what kind) and one time some got lost in the back of the refrigerator for a month. I opened it and there was fuzzy greenish mold on it. Eww! Maybe because it was sealed airtight.
I have trouble keeping blue cheese crumbles, too, even the ones that aren’t in the back of the refrigerator. They get even moldier. Is this a poor way of buying it? Should I buy it in a chunk? We almost cannot eat salads without it, we love it so much. But, ick with the mold.
True, solid blocks of cheese last longer. Even if there’s a little mold, it can be cut off and the rest used. Once outside mold gets into shredded or crumbled cheese, toss it.