Thursday, January 27, 2005



I had to repost this.

My friend, Schmootzie, over at New World Odor,
has a post up in which he discusses the intelligent,
hilarious and beautiful Roxanne's quandry over olive oil.
For their benefit, and for those who need a refresher read
on this very important topic I give you this information from

In my family, we are weaned, at the tender age of 12 months,
from mother's milk right to olive oil. There was never any
other type of oil allowed, except for those times when baking
called for a less fruity tasing oil for pasteries and cakes.

Nonna Rizzo used to treat us with fresh baked Italian bread
sprinkled with warm olive oil. That was our after-school snack.
And if she wanted to show us a little more love, she'd sprinkle
that with fresh oregano. O dio mio!!!!

And now for your refresher course in olive oil:
What is olive oil? Identifying the differences in grades
of olive oil and the procedures in obtaining them. So,
you are standing in the supermarket aisle eyeing the
olive oils, you see pure olive oil, extra virgin olive oil,
light olive oil, and now you are thoroughly confused.

What is what? What do these terms mean and what
differentiates the grades? First of all, let's look at the
process of extracting oil from olives. The first step is
that olives are picked, depending on the type of olive
and the time of year it is picked will have a lot to do
with how the oil tastes and how much oil will be able
to be extracted. The variety of olives, plus climate,
and process make the final oil almost as unique and
varied as fine wine. The picked olives are washed,
and then sent to a mill and either pulverized or
ground up, then the resulting mulch is sightly warmed
and mixed to tease out the oil from the meat. The mulch
is then laid out on mats that are stacked and then sent
to a hydraulic press that slowly presses this mulch over
a prescribed period of time to about 2200 lbs. per square
inch! The run off from this pressing is vegetable water
and oil. The oil is usually centrifuged or decanted from
the water and the water is used as fertilizer or discarded.

This is what is referred to as a first cold pressing and the
resulting oil, that has to contain less than a certain
percentage of free oleic acid, is termed extra virgin.
It has all the nuances and characteristics of the olive
it is taken from. It is full bodied and can be, astringent,
peppery, buttery, green, piquant. ect... This is olive oil
in its most pure and expensive form. Now the mulch
that has been pressed into a cake still has oil therein.
These cakes are sent to a refinery where heat and
chemicals extract the rest of the oil out and refine it.
Now you have a flavorless, colorless, vegetable oil that
then has a little virgin oil added to it for flavor. Now
you have pure olive oil, not a lot of flavor or body but
the product is wholesome. Light olive oil does not
contain less fat, it is just lighter in color and pretty
much neutral in flavor, it is simply a highly refined
olive oil. Another reason olive oil may be refined is that
the olives have been abused in some way, either they
waited too long to go to press and started to mold or
ferment, the mats started to mold and gave the oil a
very off flavor, or the pressed oil may have started to
go rancid. The various negative qualities that an oil
can have, that is sign of abuse of the olives and/or oil,
are fusty, musty, rancidity, burnt, muddy sediment,
and winey, plus others. In any of these cases, any
significantly perceptible qualities of this sort would make
the oil unpleasant and unacceptable and so off the oil goes
to the refinery to have all the positive and negative qualities
refined out, what's left? Flavorless, colorless, vegetable oil
that is spiked with a little virgin oil for flavor and there
again you have pure olive oil, not a whole lot of flavor but
wholesome and good for cooking. So, next time you are at
the market you won't have to stare blankly at the olive oils
and wonder what's what, you'll be able to confidently
pick the oil you want or need for whatever application you desire!

When I was in high school I worked weekends in a deli and we actually sold "O Dio Mio" olive oil.
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