Italian Gorgonzola

Gorgonzolo from Italy

Gorgonzola is a veined Italian blue cheese, made from unskimmed cow's and/or goat's milk. It can be buttery or firm, crumbly and quite salty, with a 'bite' from its blue veining.

It has been made since the early Middle Ages, but became marbled with greenish-blue mold only in the eleventh century. It is frequently used in Italian cooking.

The name comes from Gorgonzola, a small town near Milan, Italy, where, it is reported, the cheese was first made in 879; however, this claim of geographical origin is disputed by other towns.

Gorgonzola is made in the regions of Piedmont and Lombardy from whole cow's milk, to which is added lactic acid bacteria, along with spores of the mold Penicillium glaucum. 

Gorgonzola is typically aged for three to four months. The length of the aging process determines the consistency of the cheese.

A firm Gorgonzola is aged longer than creamy Gorgonzola. The cheese is usually packaged and sold in a foil wrapper.

Gorgonzola may be consumed in many ways. It may be melted into a risotto in the final stage of cooking, for instance. Another fairly traditional dish sees gorgonzola served alongside polenta. Pasta with gorgonzola is a dish appreciated almost everywhere in Italy by gorgonzola lovers; usually gorgonzola goes on short pasta, such as penne, rigatoni, mezze maniche, or sedani, not with spaghetti or linguine.

Because of its distinctive flavor, gorgonzola is frequently offered as a topping on pizza, alone or with other soft cheeses (this is the so-called pizza ai quattro formaggi which means four cheeses pizza).

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