How do you know when blue cheese goes bad?

[disneysteve]

I bought a block of blue cheese a while ago and now I'm wondering how one tells when it has gone bad. It starts out moldy and not smelling all that great, 2 criteria that would usually indicate it is time to throw out a piece of cheese. So how do I know if my blue cheese is still okay?

[m.f.walters]

bad blue cheese

Hi Steve, professional foodie here-blue cheese just gets smellier. Kind of like brie-smells like ammonia when it's good, makes your eyes water when it's bad. We just take a tiny bite. If it tastes bad, toss it.

[GREENBACK]

I don't know a lot about cheese but I remember as a child watching my elders hang hams and pork shoulders in a smokehouse til it developed mold on it and declaring it "ready". I don't know how they determined "ready" versus not fit for for consumption. I assume cheeses like blue cheese that are based on mold to begin with have a similar measuring system so I guess if it smells fit to eat it must be, I guess.

[GrimJack]

My mom is from France - she thinks anything fuzzy on cheese adds to the flavor. She eats cheddar that is turning to blue cheese but that may be an extreme. Most moldy cheeses are left in a cave to be 'contaminated' - you should just consider your 'fridge' to be a cave (hey, caves are the original fridges). It probably won't kill you so be Nietzschean about it.

[GrimJack]

DW just suggested "when it is all blue and no cheese"

[brandini25]

I like DW's suggestion

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Heh-heh, I thought of this thread when husband cooked vegetables with fermented bean curd sauce the other night. Phew-wee!

[disneysteve]

Heh-heh, I thought of this thread when husband cooked vegetables with fermented bean curd sauce the other night. Phew-wee!

Maybe when it spoils, it starts smelling good.

[simpleyme]

I always buy the huge bags of shredded cheese from costco,for reasons unknown last week i read the bag it says to use within 5-7 days of opening! these bags of cheese take us months to eat and never seem to "get old"

they give samples of some sort of moldy white cheese at costco,that was my question how would you know it went bad, its so bad to start with ;-)

[boosami]

Different types of cheese are aged by different and very specific strains of fungi and bacteria. Contamination from unknown microbes could be harmful to you. All mold is not created equal! If cheese starts growing something that wasn't there to begin with, it's gone bad and you should pitch it. Will you die or get sick from eating it? Depends on what microbe contaminated it--a game a chance.

Same reason why eating modly bread isn't a chance to get a dose of "free penicillin."

[simpleyme]

DiBruno Bros: The Queso-Files

a blog about cheese not going bad

[GrimJack]

Really kool link - thanks! I am going to send it to my French mom.

[Coleroo]

I may be the only one, but the title of your post sent me into laughter.

Not sure why, but it really tickled me. It should be included on of those email forwards with things such as "Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle" and "Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are getting weak?".

:-D