Frank
My first two blue's had non-smooth rind and thus quite a rind that yes I'll admit, I ate. My current Stilton style I smoothed.
I do not know why Stilton's sides are smoothed, they obviously help in appearance but in the videos they are smoothed enough to stop air and thus blue mold egress into the cheese. So I think that is the reason, to delay bluing of the inside of the cheese presumably to allow more normal cheese ripening before piercing and the interior made blue.
Conversely for normal "danish" type blues,
the video here shows very smooth sides, top, and bottom cheeses (before piercing) that to me look like normal pressed cheeses. Which Carter says are normally brined. So again, smoothed sides appear to be required.
But what's bugging me is the
blue cheeses I have bought have no rind/are white on outside, how?