This class of Blue or marbled cheese is called fromage persille, as well as fromage bleu and pate bleue.  Similar mountain cheeses are made in Auvergne and Aubrac and have distinct qualities that have brought them fame, such as Cantal, bleu d’Auvergne Guiole or Laguiole, bleu de Salers, and St. Flour.  Olivet and Queville come within the color scheme, and sundry others such as Champoleon, Journiac, Queyras and Sarraz.

Of English Blues there are several celebrities beside Stilton and Cheshire Stilton.  Wensleydale was one in the early days, and still is, together with Blue Dorset, the deepest green of them all, and esoteric Blue Vinny, a choosey cheese not liked by everybody, the favorite of Thomas Hardy.

Brie

Sheila Hibben once wrote in The New Yorker:

I can’t imagine any difference of opinion about Brie’s being the queen of all cheeses, and if there is any such difference, I shall certainly ignore it.  The very shape of Brie—­so uncheese-like and so charmingly fragile—­is exciting.  Nine times out of ten a Brie will let you down—­will be all caked into layers, which shows it is too young, or at the over-runny stage, which means it is too old—­but when you come on the tenth Brie, coulant to just the right, delicate creaminess, and the color of fresh, sweet butter, no other cheese can compare with it.

The season of Brie, like that of oysters, is simple to remember:  only months with an “R,” beginning with September, which is the best, bar none.

Caciocavallo

From Bulgaria to Turkey the Italian “horse cheese,” as Caciocavallo translates, is as universally popular as it is at home and in all the Little Italics throughout the rest of the world.  Flattering imitations are made and named after it, as follows: 

    BULGARIA:  Kascaval

    GREECE:  Kashcavallo and Caskcaval

    HUNGARY:  Parenica

    RUMANIA:  Pentele and Kascaval

    SERBIA:  Katschkawalj

    SYRIA:  Cashkavallo

    TRANSYLVANIA:  Kascaval (as in Rumania)

    TURKEY:  Cascaval Penir

    YUGOSLAVIA:  Kackavalj

A horse’s head printed on the cheese gave rise to its popular name and to the myth that it is made of mare’s milk.  It is, however, curded from cow’s milk, whole or partly skimmed, and sometimes from water buffalo; hard, yellow and so buttery that the best of it, which comes from Sorrento, is called Cacio burro, butter cheese.  Slightly salty, with a spicy tang, it is eaten sliced when young and mild and used for grating and seasoning when old, not only on the usual Italian pastes but on sweets.