As some of you know, I go on a cruise with Randy King of Seawind Tours and Travel each year. We visit places around the world and I do a talk story session and a little cooking for the cruisers who signed up. This year we are going to the Greek Islands, Paris and Istanbul.
I was asked to start the evening by talking about olive oil because we are going to the land of olive oil. To prepare for this, we called upon a friend, Angel Foster of Island Olive Oil Co., to give me a refresher. Foster did such an amazing job explaining things through a tasting of six different olive oils. There are as many different kinds of olives to make olive oil as there are grapes to make wine. We sniffed and tasted Arbequina, Arbosana, Nocellara, Koroneiki, Picual and Coratina olive oils.
There was a time when I couldn’t tell you what olive oil was. I didn’t grow up with it. Olive oil was unfamiliar to me with its bitterness and spiciness, and I didn’t think it fit with Asian flavors. The only oils in my pantry were sesame oil and salad oil. Even as a beginning cook I used to dismiss it and say, “Dis buggah is bitter.”
It wasn’t until I visited an olive oil farm in Croatia that I started to understand it. Through my travels, I began to have a newfound appreciation for olive oil as I learned how to use it in my cooking.
Foster started off with some factoids. The average consumption of olive oil in the United States per person is 1 liter, 2 liters in the United Kingdom and 12 liters in Italy. But in Greece, it’s 25 liters per person per year. That’s why I say we are going to the land of olive oil. They cook with it, pour it on everything and some take a daily dose to start the day.
Spain produces 50% of the world’s supply of olive oil. Italy is the biggest exporter. It takes 20 kilos (2.2 pounds = 1 kilo) to make 1 kilo of olive oil.
There are northern and southern hemisphere olive oils. When harvested it should be processed into olive oil on that day to prevent fermentation. From that point it will be up to two years until the olive oil should be replaced.
In the beginning, it is alive with personality, peppery, bitter, aromatic and tasty. It slowly settles down over time, losing some of that personality and you know it’s going bad when it feels waxy on the tongue. Most of us can’t tell because we don’t usually have a spoonful out of the bottle. Instead we taste it when its had a lot of spices, herbs and acid mixed into the oil. Try preparing a bowl of salad greens, drizzle olive oil over the salad, toss it so that all the lettuce has a nice coating and is not drowned, and then taste the salad on its own. Sometimes, all that pepperiness and bitterness adds flavor to the greens and all you need is a squeeze of lemon juice or a splash of vinegar and a sprinkle of salt.
That hot bitterness is probably the polyphenols, which is the healthy part of the olive oil, so the higher the number of polyphenols the better. Polyphenols are also naturally found in grapes, tea, chocolates, nuts and olives. They are prized for their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and other health benefits. So the next time you try some olive oil and it’s peppery and bitter just tell yourself, “It’s good for me.”
I do my own research on all the destinations we go to. What foods, dishes and ingredients the regions are known for, what are the best restaurants and their history. This will tell me how their cuisine evolved. The Mediterranean diet best describes the food at our latest ports. It has a lot of olive oil, lemon, garlic, fresh herbs and spices, more fish and seafood than meat, beans, grains, nuts and seeds. I know I am only scratching the surface and can’t wait to dive deeper.
For the evening with the cruisers we did a smaller tasting of only three olive oils. Before tasting, I always smell what’s in the glass first. After sniffing, I like to taste each glass from left to right and then right to left. Trust me, it makes a difference when you do it like that. That night I prepared a cured kampachi crudo, using the Greek olive oil to make schug — a spicy condiment made with chiles, garlic, herbs and spices that’s a staple in Middle Eastern cooking —and I topped it with chopped pistachios. I also prepared some beef with a Greek olive relish, white bean puree and pine nuts.
What I enjoy most is learning new flavors and trying new things that I have never done before. Traveling is an education for me. The process of learning evolves each year and with every destination.
