Obsessing over olive oil can be good for your health. In fact, this is one addiction that you’d be wise to cultivate.
Why? Because it can add years, as well as flavor to your life.
Research has shown that the Mediterranean diet is good for your health, your girth and boosts longevity.
Question: What do we mean by Mediterranean diet?
Answer: Simply, it’s about saying yes to fresh fruit and vegetables (especially beans and greens); yes to fish and fowl; yes to unrefined cereals; yes (with some qualifiers) to cheese and yoghurt; and a big yes to olive oil for cooking, baking, salad dressings, sauces — in fact, for all dietary fat and oil needs. Serve olive oil in a dipping plate when you entertain and see who likes it better than butter with their baguette.
Olive oil facts and fun stuff
If you had the taste for it, you could journey through much of the world learning about cultures, customs, traditions, menu choices, geography, lifestyles and more through olive oil produced in different countries and regions.
You could follow an olive trail through Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey and France — then jump across to South Africa and on to Australia before, perhaps, visiting the olive groves of Palestine, to name a sampling of countries that produce.
The United States — particularly California — has seen exponential olive oil industry growth these past dozen-plus years. The quality of the oil, the variety, and the fact that some olive oil producers have established destination locations, mean it’s possible to combine day trips or weekenders away with olive oil tastings and trails.
A good place to start checking out what’s available in the United States by way of types of olive oil (including what olives are grown and used), and places to go and taste, is with the roadmap provided by San Francisco author Fran Gage in her 2009 book, The New American Olive Oil — Profiles of Artisan Producers and 75 recipes (Stewart, Tabori & Chang).
As an alternative to the book, these are two websites worth visiting:
- The Spain–headquartered International Olive Council – www.internationaloliveoil.org
- The California Olive Oil Council – www.cooc.com
Check out the California Olive Oil Council website and you’ll come across all sorts of interesting olive oil facts and resources. See the link labeled “Tasting Rooms” under the “Consumers & Retailers” heading for a guide to tasting rooms and bars.
A commonly asked question
A virgin is a virgin, one would think.
So, what does “extra virgin” mean, as in the words “extra virgin olive oil” we see on labels? And is this the olive oil we should buy?
Answer: Simply put, extra virgin is the highest grade, the purest and the best. Use only extra-virgin olive oil in your kitchen and know there are three styles — delicate, medium and robust. Use it for cooking, grilling, and making your garlic fries; for your dipping oil, salad dressings, and your mashed potatoes. Fran Gage uses it also in her “almost flourless chocolate cake” and her olive oil chocolate truffles. Yes, olive oil has a multitude of uses.
Note: You will find the recipe for the almost flourless chocolate cake on Fran Gage’s website: www.frangage.com.
Some other things to know
- Look for the harvest or use-by date. The more recent the harvest, the better the oil.
- Price matters. Extra-virgin, especially hand-harvested, is expensive to produce.
- Robust oils are the ones that make you cough when you taste them. Like wine, what olive oil you like is a matter of taste.
- Oh, and the words “first cold pressed.” Ignore them. For the most part, this is a meaningless and outdated term.
Try this at home on a chilly evening
Invite friends and buy six to eight bottles of olive oil that look interesting (or ask your friends to each bring a bottle) and set up a blind tasting. This is fun and the best way to learn about olive oil’s many subtleties. It works like a blind wine tasting (where you taste and give your opinion without knowing what you’re tasting).
While professional olive oil tasters might use palm-size round colored glasses, you can use wine glasses. But don’t pour in more than half an inch of oil. And have sliced apple or dry baguette on plates as a palate cleanser.
Hand out score sheets to note what your noses tell you when you stick them in the glass and sniff (as with wine); and what your taste buds tell you when you suck in air with the oil and let it infuse your mouth.
You can download tasting sheets with guidelines on what to look for from the Olive Oil Source website here: www.oliveoilsource.com/tasting_sheet.htm
Enjoy!
Photos by Wanda Hennig
