Ingredients: Olive Oil History

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Olive Oil Memories

I loved the tasting venues at the Fancy Food Shows, which allowed you to  sample a variety of foods from vendors such as chocolate, cheese, vinegars and, of course, olive oils. It led the Cuisinettes to stock our favorites from the US, Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Tunisia and briefly, Palestine.  My everyday olive oil was from Moulins Mahjoub in Tunisia. It was organic and unfiltered, and relatively inexpensive. There was a Spanish olive oil that I loved to use in the summer, which was pale yellow and had the flavor of almonds. The company used Arbequina and Picual olives. I had a couple of Italian ones that made you stand up and take notice, and one or two bottles of some lighter French blends. Now that I reside in a country that views itself as the center of the Olive Oil Universe, I have yet to find examples from different countries in any of my current food stores. Failing that, it has been fun to try olive oils from different regions of Italy.  Olive oil has a long, complicated history here. 

Notes From The Past

Interestingly, the Romans imported olive oil mainly from Spain and regions in North Africa that are now Tunisia and Libya. Greece probably would like to be considered the Ur-olive oil producer, but Phoenician olive oil production and trade predated theirs. Greece had actually spread the cultivation of olive trees for oil but dwindled into a minor supplier to the Roman Empire. The olive oil crown is well worth earning, as it was used for lamp fuel, medicine, cosmetics, cooking and personal hygiene and in some religious rites. According to an article in the BBC, there is an area in Andalucia that still has 2000-year-old olive trees. In fact, Spain is the largest producer and exporter of olive oil in the world. Italy is second. 

I would like someday to visit Monte Testaccio in Rome, which is often celebrated as the first garbage dump of the Roman empire.  It also has doubled as the Golgotha hill in Easter Passion Plays where Christ is crucified. The grass- and tree-covered hill stands over 100 feet and extends almost 50 feet below street level. As a disposal site for countless olive oil amphorae, it is a testimonial to the ubiquity of this essential ingredient. This final resting place for olive oil jars is not just a haphazard landfill. The Romans, who were noted for their engineering ingenuity,  halved the amphorae so that they stacked neatly, and the hill was built up with terraces of these clay shards. It is estimated that there are over 80 million of these olive oil containers in Monte Testaccio. That’s a lot of olive oil. 

After the fall of the Roman Empire, Italian olive oil production owes its survival to the growth of monasteries. Although monasteries to me seem a bit of a quaint and empty relic, for centuries monks in these communities kept music, literature, and agricultural cultivation alive in Europe, and by the Renaissance (excuse me – the Rinascimento) Puglia and Tuscany were olive oil export powerhouses. Some of these  monastic orders spread olive oil cultivation and consumption to other countries – in particular the Franciscan missionaries in the Americas. Of course this demand was boosted by waves of Greek and Italian immigrants to the New World, who demanded olive oil for their day to day cooking. 

It Ain’t Easy

Today most olive oil in Italy is produced in Puglia and Calabria – close to 70%. Single-digit percentages are produced in Sicily, Campania, Abruzzo, Lazio and Umbria, in descending order.  Even so, Italy currently  imports olive oil from Spain, Greece, Portugal and even Albania, and some from the US. And here is where there is a fair amount of controversy and some blather. 

Olive oil production is not cheap. It takes a long tIime for olive trees to grow and produce their fruits – as much as a decade for a decent harvest. And as a newsletter from an olive oil company pointed out, there are olive oil brands that may have a certain high profile and quality, along with several lesser qualities and price points. They may buy oils from different producers, even from different regions or countries and blend them to create the profiles of their brand, but they do not own the farms or produce the oil. French olive oils, in my experience, even really good ones, are more apt to come from this type of production. Next are  olive oil producers who actually have mills either for their own orchards or for a select group of farms whose olives they use for their own production and label. Spain is probably at the head of the class in this area of olive oil marketing. Finally, you have olive farms that may have a mill or not, but actually grow the olives, harvest them and sell the oil under their own label. Italy has a fair number of these farms, and they may make oils from different olives or blend them. We sold several Italian olive oils from these farms because they were quite unique in flavor and quality. 

Marketing vs Regulation

Italy has spent years marketing its olive oil (probably not unlike the marketing done by French red wine companies). Alas, the term “Made In Italy” has been tarnished for ages, and Italian olive exporters have contributed a healthy part of the tarnish. Historically, olive oil from Spain, Portugal and Italy have been mixed together and sold as an Italian product. And in the late 19th and early 20th century  Italian olive oil, cut with cottonseed or peanut oil, was sold as pure or even Extra Virgin with a sort of wink, wink by Congress. It was rumored that Fiorello LaGuardia, who served in Congress off and on from 1917 through 1933, spearheaded the lack of Congressional oversight on imported Italian olive oil.

In 1948 the US government issued olive oil standards, with terms like US Grade A/Fancy, Grade B/Choice Grade C/Standard Grade D/Substandard. These standards were based on oleic acid content. Some sensory valuations remained in place until 2010, when the US wanted to align its standards somewhat with newer international ones. The International Olive Council was organized in 1959 and has steadily worked to improve and regulate olive oil standards, increase technical expertise and prevent fraud.  The US is not a member for a couple of interesting reasons: as a country we do not want to cede  jurisdiction to foreign nations, and we are a nation of olive oil consumers with considerably less production, so would not have as much influence in the organization’s decisions. 

In 2014, The New York Times published an article “Extra Virgin Suicide,” with a highly publicized infographic which stated that the majority of imported Italian olive oil, particularly ones marked Extra Virgin, were in fact doctored, or fraudulently adulterated. These implications outraged a large number of independent producers in Italy who had worked diligently and transparently to produce olive oils, obviously for certain price points, to IOC standards. The thought was that Italy’s highly publicized Mafia struggles were coupled with the same problems we have with corrupt companies extolling non-existent virtues of their products. Further investigations of the UC Davis testing revealed that they only tested fairly low grade grocery store olive oils, with little thought to how long they had been in the bottle, or how they were stored. Furthermore, the source for much of the information in the article repudiated their interpretation.  The newspaper had to correct and retract the graphic and article, albeit reluctantly. But the story went viral, damaging the reputation of the industry. But perhaps the kerfuffle also encouraged the Italian authorities to crack down on some of the nefarious practices highlighted by the Times reporter. 

Some Things To Look For

It is best to buy your olive oil in metal or dark glass, as it degrades easily when exposed to light. Look for the harvest date, as an oil is best within two years of the harvest date. Note that harvest date is not to be confused with bottling date. EVOO by IOC regulations must have less than .08% FFA (free fatty acid), and be pressed from the first milling at less than 80.6F. The color of the olive oil varies from the type of olive used and whether it has been filtered or not. My experience has been to look for IOC compliance in an olive oil, as US regulatory agency rules are somewhat opaque. The EU will confer (and it will be on the label) PDO  – Protected Designation of Origin – meaning that every part of the production, including all the ingredients are from a specific region. And PDI  – Protected Geographical Indication – at least one stage of the production must take place in the region and that the oil reflects olives of that region. The EU now requires that all blends  must list all the countries of origin on the front label. And finally, something that I must admit I don’t pay too much attention to  – a 500ml bottle should be used up within six weeks. I think we’re going to need a bigger mountain. 

Nancy Pollard

Kitchen Detail shares under the radar recipes, explores the art of cooking, the stories behind food, and the tools that bring it all together, while uncovering the social, political, and environmental truths that shape our culinary world.