Blue Cheese Burgers Are Better Than a One-Night Stand

Summer means all sorts of things to all sorts of people. For some, it means weekends at a beach house, drinking fruity blended drinks that become pounding migraines during the course of the following day's hangover. For others, summer means sticky afternoons spent sitting as close to a box fan as possible, going slightly deaf from all the white noise. For just about everyone, summer means barbecues—barbecues of charred flesh and grilled veggies, smoked-out clothes and the burnt scent of dinner getting close to being "done."

One of the all-time best summer barbecue treats is a good, old-fashioned cheeseburger. A patty of some fresh-ground animal of your choosing (cow, turkey, buffalo, aardvark, whatever) is heightened with the addition of some melty, funky, gooey cheese that, when straddled with a bun, helps to bind the whole shebang into a perfectly portable meal. Sure, there might be nothing as good and nostalgic as a rubbery slice of Kraft American Singles (seriously, no judgment here), but let's talk about upping the game a little, shall we? Let's talk about the blue cheese burger.

As some of you might recall from columns past, blue cheese is a whole family of cheeses that have the a certain bacteria (usually penicillium roqueforti) introduced to them either directly to the milk before production, or in the air after the fact. The formed wheels are pieced with hollow needles, creating pathways for the bacteria to fester in, thus creating the "streaks" of blues, greens, and grays that riddle the cheese.

Think of the blue bacteria kinda like a one night stand. At first you have no idea what will happen. Then you wake up the next morning—sore, pierced, discolored—knowing that it will never quite be the same. That's the thing about blue cheese, and cheese in general: it's living, breathing, and organic (not in the overpriced Whole Foods marketing term sort of way, but in the alive-organism sort of way). Cheesemakers start with a basic understanding of the milk and the bacterias—but this is nature, and nature is wild, man. Not unlike a one night stand.

Anyway, blue cheese is GREAT on a burger. With anything from the robustly sweet Roquefort to the minerally, buttery Bayley Hazen Blue from Jasper Hill, you can't go wrong with the addition of the salty, earthy, altogether wild experience of a blue cheese.