Product Review: Valdeón cheese

A blue cheese made in the León province of Spain from the milk of cows and goats. It gets its name from  Posada de Valdeón, the tiny (~500 inhabitants) municipality where it is manufactured.[1] Before it is shipped it is wrapped in sycamore maple leaves or chestnut leaves. Besides having thick blue veins running through it, the cheese also has a characteristic yellow-green appearance, which can be kind of intimidating. Even more interesting, blue cheeses, such as this one, have been found to contain andrastins (see the examples in the notes below [2]), compounds which can be used to supplement cancer therapy.[3]

My verdict: This cheese was really intense—so intense that I could feel the blue veins burning my tongue! (Apparently a cheese with this characteristic is said to be 'biting'.) This cheese is definitely not for wimps. Because it was so intense, I couldn't really make out any other flavors (e.g., 'goatiness') in the cheese.

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Notes:

[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdeón cheese.

[2]

Top left, andrastin A; top right, andrastin B; bottom left, andrastin C; bottom right, andrastin D.

[3] Nielsen KF, Dalsgaard PW, Smedsgaard J, Larsen TO. (2005) "Andrastins A–D, Penicillium roqueforti Metabolites consistently produced in blue-mold-ripened cheese." J Agric Food Chem. 53 (8): 2908–13.

Image attributions:

The chemical structure of andrastin A is by Ninjatacoshell, available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrastin A.svg.

The chemical structure of andrastin A is by Ninjatacoshell, available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrastin B.svg.

The chemical structure of andrastin A is by Ninjatacoshell, available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrastin C.svg.

The chemical structure of andrastin A is by Ninjatacoshell, available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrastin D.svg.