Many taxis in Delhi have a sunshade on the rear window advertising a brand of Spanish olive oil that can be delivered to your home. Every time I catch sight of one of these ads, I smile. Because South Asia, in general, and Delhi, in particular, seems a world removed from the Mediterranean which is the home of the olive and, consequently, olive oil. The cuisine of that region curls around this superstar. Go to a Spanish supermarket and not only will the shelves be groaning with at least a dozen brands of olive oils while the snacks section carries wafers flavoured with olive oil and sea-salt, even the cosmetics department will have soaps containing olive oil. But olive oil is really only the tip of the iceberg. It’s heart-warming to see the reverence with which the olive is treated here.
On a recent visit to Sabena, not far from Rome, I went sightseeing. Not to see an old ruin or a church: the star of this show was an olive tree that was reputed to be 1,600 years old. The owner had bought the property—only because of the beautiful tree that was too old to bear fruit. Even neighbours from miles and miles around would come to pay their respect to the tree. I was there, along with 11 other journalists from across the world, as a guest of the International Olive Oil Council, based in Madrid, whose member countries are centered around the Mediterranean Sea, which is, after all, the birth place of the olive.
What makes the story of the olive—its tree, fruit and oil—so compelling is the way it fits into the landscape. During our four-day tour of Andalusia, southern Spain, we were always in sight of olive trees. Andalusia is, after all, where the bulk of Spain’s 300 million olive trees can be found. The aristocratic Fransisco ‘Paco’ Nunes de Prado got us hooked further. His olive groves and the attached oil mill still operated in the traditional way. It was a sort of boutique operation, with the personal attention of the aristocratic Nunes de Prado himself. It was the first time any of us had seen a Count rolling up his sleeves and working alongside his men, and the sheer passion that he had for his land and its produce was infectious. “Just look at the way the golden sun is shining on the olive trees, causing the whole landscape to glow like molten liquid gold,” he told us early on in our Andalusia tour: As he spoke about his trees, Nunes de Prado—whose family has been nurturing olive groves for seven generations—managed to communicate his passion to us. Since then, we’ve never looked at an olive tree as just another plant.
Many of Nunes de Prado’s practices are inspired. The old residence of the family has been turned into a museum cum office cum restaurant. And the restaurant is headed by a trained chef. There is where we had prawns in mayonnaise. Needless to say that the mayonnaise was made with olive oil. Likewise the fritto misto – batter-fried vegetables – had been deep-fried with extra virgin olive oil. None of us had previously believed it to be possible. We have been told stories of how extra virgin olive oil is unstable in high heat. In Baena, Nunes de Prado’s chef proved that it is no such thing!
In the two days that we spent in Madrid, we didn’t see a single olive tree, so the whole busload of us burst into applause on our way to Toledo, just north of Madrid, where we had gone to visit an olive museum when we spotted yet more olive groves. Spend two days around olive plantations, and you’ll soon be able to tell them apart, by appearance alone. The old plantations have narrow spaces between rows of trees with sturdy trunks: they were planted in the days when plucking was an entirely human endeavour. Now that olive plucking is mechanised, the new plantations have trees with slender trunks and widely spaced rows for trolleys, miles of nets and plastic vibrating machines that look like brooms. There are not too many trees in the world that are older than a hundred years: the ones which are, have a timeless, wind-hewn appearance. Most trees in the Mediterranean basin are between 20 and 60 years old. The geographical terrain they grow in can vary from sub-Saharan in Central Tunisia to the lush hills of Tuscany in Central Italy.
“The way the olive tree has influenced the landscape is similar to the way its oil has influenced food,” says Pino Cipolla, Director, Pietro Coricelli, one of Italy’s larger brands of extra virgin olive oil. Cooking with extra virgin olive oil in the Mediterranean region is all in a day’s work. What distinguishes one brand from another is the scale of operations. The rolling hills around the factory in Spoleto in the Umbria province of Italy, glow rose at sunset and the ashen leaves of the olive trees rustle in the breeze all the way to infinity. There is a certain endearing appeal of olive country that warms the heart, no matter where it is located.
In the labyrinthine souks of the Tunisian capital, Tunis, you hardly notice the toothpaste white walls or the cerulean blue of the shop doors that cram the ancient alleyways. Every surface is covered with handicrafts. Mortars and pestles made with olive wood, all grainy and gnarled; tiny replicas of olive trees made with silver and fragrant balsam; tiles depicting olive branches that call to mind Roman mosaics that have been excavated in ten places in the country; even pottery bowls for serving olive oil: the accessories of the all-important ingredient of the Mediterranean diet are visible everywhere.
Olive oil has grown in status ever since it was discovered that communities with a Mediterranean diet had a low incidence of cancer and heart dysfunction. Since then, there is a race on to see which Mediterranean country can reach out to new markets. After all, the Mediterranean countries themselves are considered saturated markets. So far, the US and Canada are the largest non-Mediterranean consumers of extra virgin olive oil by a huge margin, but there’s still scope in the smaller cities and towns of those countries to increase consumption of olive oil. And every olive-growing country is keenly eyeing the Asian giants: India and China.
There is a big advantage to living in a non-olive producing country like India. Yu can get olive oil from various parts of the world. By contrast, Spain only sells Spanish olive oil, Greece only Greek oil and so forth. About the only exception is Italy, where blended olive oil as opposed to single varietals is the norm. Thus, a batch of oil that is sold as Italian, may have traces of Spanish, Turkish and Syrian in it, though this is not indicated on the label. But this will soon change. Branded, single source, oil commands a far higher price than blends, coming out of an anonymous container on a ship that looms up from out of the blue. So, oils made by blending the produce of different countries is on its way out, helped on by a legislation that requires the country of origin to be listed on the label.
Extra virgin olive oil is the top quality oil because it is made with olives and is put through a centrifugal process during which the fruit is not subjected to more than 27 degrees Celsius heat. Olive oil comes after that. Heat is used to extract whatever has been left behind from the first press. The third quality is not recommended, being the oil extracted with heat as well as chemicals. Called pomace, it has a knack of making its way into markets of the developing world, helped along by clever marketing and nebulous wording.
Every olive producing country has its own varieties of olives. Leccino is specific to Italy, whereas picual is from Spain, nabali is from Jordan, al zeti from Syria and chemlali is from Tunisia. And these varieties are less than a fraction of the total varieties grown. Depending on what stage of ripeness the fruit is picked (green, half and half or black), how many days/months it is stored before being made into oil and whether many varietals are used or only one, the oil will taste different. It may be strong and pungent like Spanish picual, or have a hint of almonds like some oils from Puglia in Southern Italy or have notes of basil, parsley and celery. It may be heavy on the palate and be suitable only for perking up salads or be light enough for consuming with bread and salt, or be assertive enough to pour into soup.
Nature has endowed olive oil with as many variations as wine. The fun is buying several bottles from as many countries as you can, and using them all simultaneously. Soon, the fruity oil, with an identifiably olive flavour will have you hooked for life.