On with the mold, into the blues. You could build yourself a veritable blue cheese tower of babel with Britain’s Stilton, Denmark’s Danish Blue, France’s Roquefort, Ireland’s Cashel Blue, Italy’s Gorgonzola, and Spain’s Cabrales. It seems this moldy cheese is loved in every language.

On the home front we’ve got good old Maytag Blue, as dependable as the washing machine whose name it shares (and yes, they are related; the dairy that makes Maytag Blue was started by the grandson of the founder of Maytag appliances).

Not to make Maytag any bluer than it already is, but there’s a new generation of American artisanal blue cheeses cutting in on Maytag’s turf. If you like this pungent, crumbly cheese on your steaks and salads as much as we do, you might want to try them.

Wednesday’s LA Times rundown of some of the more outstanding varieties inspired us to run out to the legendary Murray’s Cheese Shop on Bleecker Street to sample some of these “boutique “ blues for ourselves.

My favorite by far was Bayley Hazen Blue from Jasper Hill Farms in Vermont, whose motto is “Old world style, new world twist.” Jasper Hill, with a mere 26 cows, is a family farm success story in an era when small dairy farmers are dropping like flies. With a blue cheese this good, it’s no wonder they turned a profit in their first year. Cynthia Zarin said of Bayley Hazen Blue in the New Yorker, “It was tangy, sweet, creamy, velvet on the tongue, the most delicious blue cheese I’d ever tasted.”

We crumbled it over a salad of endive, radicchio, pears and toasted hazelnuts, but what I really want to make with Bayley Hazen Blue is Emeril’s blue cheese-pear ice cream. I hope there’s enough left, but if there isn’t, Murray’s is only a few blocks away.