KITCHEN CUPBOARD

Photograph: © margo555-Fotolia.com

GREEN GOLD

Decoding the wonderfully
varied world of olive oil

BY MICHAEL COLAMECO

When I was growing up, extra-virgin olive oil was simply not sold in supermarkets. Through the 1960s, ’70s and even the early ’80s, it was considered a specialty food item. Only someone who knew where to look could find it, usually in small neighborhood stores that carried imported, “ethnic” goods. Change came in the late ’70s, thanks to food-industry pioneers like John Profaci of the New Jersey-based Colavita USA, who convinced Harold Anderson—owner of Haddon House Food Products, the Medford-based food-distribution giant—to place an order for his new oil from Italy.

Today olive oils are hugely popular and serve a global market. Spain, Italy and Greece still lead the world in both production and consumption, accounting for nearly 75 percent in both categories, but rising demand has led to new orchards in new venues such as Australia, Argentina, California, Chile and South Africa. I’ve had wonderful olive oils from all over Greece, the south of France, Morocco, Tunisia, Australia, and Turkey.

Olive oil’s current growth in production seems to be moving in lockstep with the growth of the international wine trade. And why not? Olive oil and viticulture have a lot in common. They share a long history with roots reaching back 6,000 years to Iran, Palestine, Syria, ancient Greece and the expansion of the Roman Empire. Olives, like grapes, are fruit with distinctive and unique varieties and flavor profiles. In the same way that terroir, growing practices, and harvest and fermentation techniques inform the taste of wines, soil type, elevation, planting practices, extraction techniques and a host of other factors contribute to the distinctive and unique varieties of olive oils.

From rich, smooth, fruity and buttery to grassy, herbaceous and peppery, the best oils have a great range of flavor characteristics that can vary widely from region to region (even from orchard to orchard). In Italy, there are over 300 distinct olive varieties. In Puglia alone there are 60 million olive trees.

Wherever they’re planted, olive trees thrive in bright sunshine and well-drained soils and can survive on little rain—sometimes for centuries. (In Greece, Italy and Sicily, there are trees more than a thousand years old that still bear fruit.) Every fall, harvesters take to the orchards, armed with rakes and ladders. As they gently rake the trees, the ripe olives fall and collect in nets strung below. The olives are then sorted for ripeness, and leaves and debris are removed. Within 24 hours, they are rinsed and ground to a fine pulp, then pressed through layers of filters to glean the oil. Finally the oil is poured into a centrifuge where any water is spun out.

That’s a basic description of the usual harvesting and extraction technique—but variations in these practices result in different grades of olive oil. This can be confusing for the shopper. With supermarket shelves stocked with jars and tins labeled extra-virgin, virgin, pure, first press, cold pressed, and pomace, how does one decide? Let’s start by defining some of the most common labeling terms. Extra-virgin is the purest, highest-grade, best-tasting olive oil. Pressed from the ripest olives harvested from superior growing regions, nearly all the extra-virgin olive oil produced worldwide is extracted from fresh olives at low temperature, hence the term “cold pressed.” Additionally, they’re “first press,” meaning they’re the purest expression of the olive fruit; pressed only once, they use only the initial oil runoff. Thanks to its excellent flavor profile, extra-virgin can serve as an ingredient in recipes (see recipe sidebar) or stand on its own, playing a near-condiment role as a dip for bread.

When cooking, I’ll use extra-virgin olive oil for sautéing vegetables, making tomato sauces, sautéing fish or meat at a low-temperature, or braising (lentils, for example). As a general rule, I don’t use extra-virgin when I cook at high temperatures, since its nuanced flavor is often lost when exposed to high heat. Instead, when sautéing chicken pieces or a steak where the pan will be on the stove for 12 to 18 minutes at 400- plus degrees, I’ll go with a virgin olive oil (see below) or even a seed oil such as corn, soybean or canola—and save the extra-virgin oil to drizzle over the food once it’s plated or to finish the dish right off the heat, immediately before serving, like a sauce.

Virgin olive oil is a very good, healthy everyday cooking oil. The difference between virgin and extra-virgin comes down to the quality of the fruit and, specifically, how it was handled before, during and after harvest, from blossom to store shelf.

Poorly harvested fruit—olives that may be bruised, unripe or allowed to sit for days after harvest in large piles, silos or bins— produce oils with a higher oleic acid content. Low acidity is better— it means an oil that’s more stable and holds its flavor, even in storage, for longer. Oil pressed from sound, healthy, freshly picked olives, and made carefully, without using excessive heat, normally has a low acidity—well under 0.5 percent FFA (free fatty acids). Extra-virgin olive oils must have less than 0.8 percent FFA, according to industry standards. But virgin olive oil can contain up to 2 percent oleic acid.

Other inherent flaws in taste and smell also lead to virgin olive oil’s lower grade, but none of these mean it’s not a solid ingredient to have on hand in the kitchen.

Refined, or pure, olive oils have a high acid level and are of such poor quality that they must be further refined in order to be safe and edible. I’d pass on all of these.

Pomace oil comes from treating the leftover olive pulp and pits with chemical solventsand can sometimes be a misleading, mislabeled mix of vegetable and olive oils. Don’t bother with this oil.

You’re better off with any common blended seed oil, or canola, corn, peanut or soybean oil.

With differences in grade and tastes that vary greatly from country to country, exploring the world of olive oils is a fascinating adventure. Of course, everyone has different tastes, so don’t be afraid to experiment in order to find one—or two—oils that you like and that suit your cooking needs.

RECIPE

ITALIAN ORANGE AND OLIVE OIL BREAKFAST CAKE

Photograph: Ray Painter at Eden Gourmet, South Orange

Storage tip: Olive oil is best consumed fresh—within six months or a year of harvest. It should be stored in a cool, dark space in a sealed container, because—just like wines—its enemies are oxygen, heat, and light, which accelerate rancidity.