User:Mmdimdi

For example, the already well known cheese-making area known for ancient dairy traditions, Pasturo nella Valsassina. This is because of the presence of superb natural caves that stayed at the perfect temperature (between 6 and 12 degrees celsius) to make Gorgonzola and many other cheeses. Gorgonzola was supposedly created in the middle ages from the years 879 - 1007 AD.

There is a Lombardy legend of Gorgonzola’s origin where a cheesemaker added new fresh curds to a vat and left it open all night. He apparently forgot about the curds because he was in a rush to meet his lover. He attempted to fix his mistake and added fresh curds to the vat and a few months later he was surprised with a new bluish mold that had grown on his cheese. He tasted this and realized the surprisingly great and unique taste of the cheese. This was also the first discovery of the process of erborinatura, the creation of mold.

Ever since the beginning of the 20th century, popularity of the cheese has been steadily increasing, more so abroad with past exports breaking the tens thousand tons per year. Exports include the UK, France, and Germany. Each country has specific types of the cheese it perferes. British people enjoy the softer white and spicy Gorgonzola, while French and Germans like blue veined strong Gorgonzola. Gorgonzola was discovered to be on the RMS Titanic and Sir Winston Churchill, the English politician, was a big fan of Gorgonzola. His love for the cheese was so great that during the Second World War, the town of Gorgonzola and its dairies were prohibited from being bombed by the British.

After World War 2, the new technique called the “one-curd” processing method was introduced. This production fixed the prior problems of the production with hygiene, quality, and costs. However, during the 1970s when hundreds of cheese factories modernized like this, it caused various smaller producers to go out of business. Since they were not able to bear the costs of modernizing.