Stilton (cheese)

Stilton
Blue Stilton
Country of origin	England
Region, town	Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire
Source of milk	Cows
Pasteurised	Yes
Texture	semi-soft, crumbly, creamier with increasing age
Aging time	9 weeks minimum
Certification	PDO

Stilton is an English cheese, produced in two varieties: Blue, known for its characteristic strong smell and taste, and the lesser-known White. Both have been granted the status of a protected designation of origin by the European Commission, which requires that only cheese produced in the three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire and made according to a strict code may be called "Stilton". Thus cheese made in the village of Stilton which is now in Cambridgeshire (from where its name was derived in the 18th century) could not be sold as "Stilton".

Frances Pawlett (or Paulet), a "skilled cheese maker" of Wymondham, has traditionally been credited as the person who set modern Stilton cheese's shape and style characteristics in the 1720s, but others have also been named. A recipe for a Stilton cheese was published by Richard Bradley, first Professor of Botany at Cambridge University in his 1726 book A General Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening. Bradley records a letter from a correspondent, John Warner, which states the cheese is made in Stilton and that the Bell Inn produced "the best cheese in town".

The first known written reference to Stilton cheese appeared in William Stukeley's Itinerarium Curiosum, Letter V, dated October 1722. Daniel Defoe in his 1724 work A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain notes, "We pass'd Stilton, a town famous for cheese, which is call'd our English Parmesan, and is brought to table with the mites, or maggots round it, so thick, that they bring a spoon with them for you to eat the mites with, as you do the cheese."

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Wikipedia