Editing Roquefort (section)

==History==
According to legend, Roquefort cheese was discovered when a youth, eating his lunch of bread and ewes' milk cheese, saw a beautiful girl in the distance. Abandoning his meal in a nearby cave, he ran to meet her. When he returned a few months later, the mold (''[[Penicillium roqueforti]]'') had transformed his plain cheese into Roquefort.<ref name=bw>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2001-12-30/something-is-rotten-in-roquefort|title=Something is rotten in Roquefort|magazine=[[Business Week]]|date=31 December 2001}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06EFDA143BF930A15755C0A964948260&sec=health|title=Blue-veined Cheeses : The expanding choices|newspaper=[[New York Times]]|date=23 June 1982 | first=Florence | last=Fabricant | access-date=22 May 2010}}</ref>

In 79&nbsp;AD, [[Pliny the Elder]] praised the cheeses of [[Lozère]] and [[Gévaudan]] and reported their popularity in ancient [[Rome]]; in 1737, [[Jean Astruc]] suggested that this was a reference to an ancestor of Roquefort.<ref>[[Jean Astruc]] (1737). ''Memoires pour l'histoire naturel de la province de Languedoc''. Paris: Guillaume Cavelier. p. 55. [https://books.google.com/books?id=gLhUAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA55 full text] Pliny, ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]]'', Book 11, chapter 97 [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137:book=11:chapter=97&highlight=Lesura full text].</ref> The theory was widely taken up, and by the 1860s was being promoted by the ''Société des Caves''.<ref>Nelleke Teughels, Peter Scholliers, ''A Taste of Progress: Food at International and World Exhibitions in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'', {{ISBN|1317186435}}, p. 186</ref> Others have dismissed the idea, on the grounds that Pliny does not clearly identify a blue cheese.<ref>Howard Belton (2015). ''A History of the World in Five Menus''. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. p. 9. [https://books.google.com/books?id=qu97BwAAQBAJ&pg=PT21 online text].</ref> There is no clear consensus on the meaning of Pliny's description—it has been variously interpreted as a reference to [[fromage frais]], cheese pickled in [[Must|grape-juice]], and even [[fondue]],<ref>Abbé Pascal (1854). "Notice sur le fromage de la Lozère". Mende: Ignon. pp. 84–87 [https://books.google.com/books?id=k4AFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA84 online text]. George Cuvier and J.B.F.S. Ajasson de Grandsagne (1828). ''Caii Pilinii Secundi Historiæ Naturalis''. Paris: Lemaire. pt. 3. vol. 4 p. 568, n. 3 [https://books.google.com/books?id=uVJcAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA568 online text].</ref> as well as a reference to Roquefort.

By the middle ages, Roquefort had become a recognized cheese. On 4 June 1411, [[Charles VI of France|Charles VI]] granted a monopoly for the ripening of the cheese to the people of [[Roquefort-sur-Soulzon]] as they had been doing for centuries.<ref name=masui>{{cite book | last1=Masui | first1=Kazuko | last2=Yamada |first2=Tomoko | title = French Cheeses
| publisher = [[Dorling Kindersley]]
|year=1996 | page=178
| isbn = 0-7513-0896-X}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Oxford Companion to Cheese|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pRrGDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT237|access-date=2 June 2018|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199330904|page=237}}</ref>

By 1820, Roquefort was producing 300 tonnes a year, a figure that steadily increased throughout the next century so that by 1914 it was 9,250.<ref>{{cite book|first=Colin Duncan|last=Taylor|title=Menu from the Midi: A Gastronomic Journey through the South of France|year=2021|publisher=Matador |language=English| isbn= 978-1800464964}}</ref>

In 1925, the cheese was the recipient of France's first ''[[Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée]]'' when regulations controlling its production and naming were first defined.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.roquefort.fr/en/news/discovering/the-cheese/origins/ |title=Roquefort: Origins |website=www.roquefort.fr |access-date=19 May 2019 |archive-date=21 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190921193607/http://www.roquefort.fr/en/news/discovering/the-cheese/origins/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 1961, in a landmark ruling that removed imitation, the ''Tribunal de Grande Instance'' at [[Millau]] decreed that, although the method for the manufacture of the cheese could be followed across the south of France, only those cheeses whose ripening occurred in the natural caves of Mont Combalou in [[Roquefort-sur-Soulzon]] were permitted to bear the name Roquefort.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=us6pBFbdb3UC&pg=PA17 |title=Labels of Origin for Food: Local Development, Global Recognition |editor-last=Barham |editor-first=Elizabeth |editor2-last=Sylvander |editor2-first=Bertil |publisher=CABI |year=2011 |isbn=978-1845933777 |page=17}}</ref>