Stilton is, along with cheddar, England's most famous cheese and the only one that has a protected area of origin.
Stilton is most often a blue cheese, made in big, 16 — 18 pound barrel shapes. It is made using whole pasteurized cow's milk, curdled with rennet and with Penicillium roqueforti mold spores added. The cheese curds are drained in the vat overnight for maximum dryness without being heated or pressed like many firm cheeses. Stilton curds are not pressed because the texture must retain some air gaps throughout the cheese for the blue veining to grow. Like all blue cheeses, after a certain period of aging the blue version of Stilton cheese is pierced with long metal skewers to permit oxygen to penetrate the interior, which encourages the growth of the Penicillium mold.
Steven Jenkins notes in his 1996 Cheese Primer that although there is a white version of Stilton which is not inoculated with mold spores or pierced with needles. It was, at that time, very hard to find.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Evansville Courier & Press