Blue Cheese was most likely discovered centuries ago, when cheeses stored in moldy caves became streaked with bluish-green mold. The blue mold in these cheeses is from Penicillium roqueforti or Penicillium glaucum. Initially each of these cheeses were produced in caves in their particular areas, where the mold was naturally present.

Today most blue cheeses are either injected with the mold, as with Roquefort, or the mold is mixed right into the curds, as it is with Gorgonzola. Many of these cheeses are still aged in the original caves where they were developed.

In 1940, a Clemson professor (then Clemson A&M College) recognized the potential of curing blue mold cheese in the Stumphouse Mountain Tunnel.

Alexis Soyer died August 5, 1858, only 49 years old. At the time he was considered the greatest chef in the world.

He was born in Meaux-in-Brie not far from Paris. His older brother Philippe, worked as a chef in a restaurant in Paris, and Alexis got a job there at a very young age. By the time he was seventeen, he had 12 chefs working under him.

The rice plant appears to have originated in southern India, spread to the north of the country and into China, where 8,000 year old sealed pots of rice were uncovered. It later spread from the East to the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Africa. Today rice is a staple for more than half the world’s population.

Sometime in the mid 1680’s, a ship from Madagascar carrying a cargo of rice, arrived in Charles Towne. Captain John Thurber gave, as a gift, a small amount of “Golde Seede Rice” to Dr. Henry Woodward, a local planter and one of the most notable early settlers.
 

Food and wine are intimately entwined, and ever since wine has been made it has been used in food preparation. Most people think of wine as something to drink with food; most chefs think of wine as something to put into food, an ingredient to cook with, and will use it in a broad range of dishes. Wine is a complex beverage that adds flavor, color, alcohol, and texture to a dish; it also accents and improves foods natural taste, and brings out the richness in other ingredients.