Dorset Blue Vinny is one of those wild cheeses that makes cheese really fun. And I mean fun beyond the obvious yummy cheese sort of thing.

In the "olden days" Blue Vinny was a common cheese made at many Dorset farms with cows. The milk was skimmed for butter and the leftover milk would be made into cheese. But since low fat skim milk generally doesn't have enough fat to encourage mold growth, the cheese would sometimes (so the stories go) be set on the floor along with some piece of moldy clothing or soggy burlap sacks.

Also interesting is that when the Monty Python skit came out, and Mousebender asked for the Dorset Blue Vinny, it literally didn't exist. The cheese had died out around the 1960s. Fortunately for us one farmer in Dorcet started making the cheese again in the 80s.

And perhaps interesting only for me is the sudden end to my quest to obtain some, probably by having to travel to England and perhaps drive out to some farm in Dorset, when my dad said he had a wedge in his fridge and you could buy it on the Internet. Next time we go up there I'll be rooting around in his cold storage for some Abertam. Perhaps he has some true Hungarian Liptauer squirreled away in an odd drawer.

Anyway....... The sample we got from iGourmet (the good stuff hand made by Michael Davies) was very nice. Semi-hard and crumbly, earthy with hints of straw, not as sharp as Stilton, very slightly stinky, nice subtle "blue" taste, distinctly cheesy.

The cat wouldn't touch it. But he's sort of been "off" cheese for the last week. Yesterday he even turned his nose up at some ripe brie, which is very uncharacteristic.

P.S. - Dorset Blue Vinny is often spelled Dorset Blue Vinney which will completely mess your Google searches. While there doesn't seem to be a difinitive spelling, I think vinny is the most used.

Dorset Blue Vinny at CheeseDatabase.com.