Green cheese is a name applied to several varieties of cheese that are green in colour. The term was first used in English to mean fresh cheese, not thoroughly dried. The Oxford English Dictionary gives a reference from the year 1542 of the four sorts of cheese. The first sort is green cheese, it tells the reader, not green by reason of color but for its newness, for the whey is not half pressed out of it as yet.

Varieties

Green cheese varieties include:

• Basiron Pesto a grass-coloured Dutch Gouda with added Pesto to give it a deep green colour.
• Sage Derby cheese
  Sage Derby cheese
  right|thumb|200px|Sage Derby cheese with wax coatingSage Derby is a mild, mottled green, semi-hard cheese with a sage flavour. The colour is from sage and sometimes other colouring added to the curds, producing a marbling effect and the subtle herb flavour...
  
  
• Cherni Vit
  Cherni Vit (cheese)
  Cherni Vit is a Bulgarian green cheese variety exclusively produced in and around the village of Cherni Vit in Teteven Municipality, Lovech Province. Made from sheep milk, Cherni Vit cheese owes the colour of its crust and its characteristic taste to the formation of mold. This occurs naturally...
  
   - Green cheese from Bulgaria.
• Green Thunder A variety of cheddar with herbs and chives, sealed in green wax, produce by the Snowdonia Cheese Company. The colour is a pale greenish-yellow.
• A Frisian
  Friesland
  Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...
  
   cheese made from low-fat milk flavoured with parsley. It has been immortalised in the Frisian shibboleth
  Shibboleth
  A shibboleth is a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people, especially a long-standing one regarded as outmoded or no longer important...
  
   "Bûter en brea en griene tsiis, hwa't dat net sizze kin is gjin oprjuchte Frys." ("Butter and bread and green cheese, who can't say that is no true Frisian.")
• Vermont sage cheese
• Schabziger
  Schabziger
  Schabziger or sapsago is traditional cheese exclusively produced in the Canton of Glarus in Switzerland.Schabziger is made out of the skimmed cow milk and a special kind of herb, blue melilot , also called blue fenugreek....
  
   (Swiss green cheese)
• Dolce verde (literally "sweet green"), an Italian cheese

There are many other cheeses which are wholly or partly green in colour due to the addition of herbs.

The veins of most so-called blue cheeses, such as gorgonzola

Gorgonzola (cheese)

Gorgonzola is a veined Italian blue cheese, made from unskimmed cow's and/or goat's milk. It can be buttery or firm, crumbly and quite salty, with a "bite" from its blue veining.- History :...

, roquefort, stilton or Maytag

Maytag Blue cheese

Maytag is a blue cheese produced on the Maytag Dairy Farms outside of Newton, Iowa, the former home of the Maytag Corporation. In 1938, Iowa State University developed a new process for making blue cheese from homogenized cow's milk instead of the traditional sheep's milk.- History :In 1941,...

, are in fact green.

Green cheese in popular culture

It is sometimes fancifully claimed that the Moon is made of green cheese

The Moon is made of green cheese

"The Moon is made of green cheese" is a statement referring to a fanciful belief that the Moon is composed of cheese. In its original formulation as a proverb and metaphor for credulity with roots in fable, this refers to the perception of a simpleton who sees a reflection of the Moon in water and...

.

Keynes' green cheese metaphor

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...

 made a mysterious reference to green cheese in his General Theory:

Exactly what Keynes meant is still a topic for discussion in economics.