Pumpkin couscous salad with Olives
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All you need to know about Olive Oil
Do you want to eat and live healthy?
Many says olive oil, the cooking oil with the highest level of monounsaturated fatty acids, is the right product to ensure your healthy life.
Here is all you need to know about olive oil.
- Olive oil is used abundantly in cooking, baking and marinating throughout the Mediterranean region.
- The origin of olive oil remains a mystery, but evidence of cultivated olives dates back over 6,000 years. The ancient Greeks and Romans both told tales of olives and their creation by the gods (and subsequent cultivation by humans); Roman mythology ascribes the birth of olives to Hercules, who struck the ground and caused an olive tree to sprout.
- In Greece, olives were said to have been created by the goddess Athena, and were considered so esteemed that only “virgins and chaste men” could tend the groves. Olives were a rare and precious commodity to lovers of fine foods.
- Among the first written records of olive oil were inventory logs carried by ancient trading ships, which brought olive oil along their many routes through the Mediterranean. Introduced to Greece as a luxurious import, olive oil was prized not only as a food, but also as a beauty treatment, and as a lightly scented fuel for lamps.
- The Roman Empire spread civilization — and the cultivation of olive groves — throughout southern Europe. Indeed the importance of olive oil was so great that the Empire’s southern regions were organized around oil provinces. When the Roman Empire collapsed, the cultivation of olive groves fell into disfavor, and for hundreds of years olives survived only in a few fortified regions high in the hills of Tuscany.
- Around 1100 AD, olive groves began once again to flourish in Italy, and Tuscany became a renowned region of cultivation of the olive tree. Some of the strict laws issued during that time, regulating the cultivation of the olives and the commerce of oil, are still followed today. By 1400, Italy had become the greatest producer of olive oil in the world, offering an extraordinary oil that graced Renaissance tables across Europe. And while olive oil production slowed briefly during the late 1600s due to taxation issues, in the long run it continued to grow through the century as civilization spread around the globe.
- In the 1700s, Franciscan missionaries brought the first olive trees to the new world. One hundred years later, olive oil made its commercial debut in the Americas as Italian and Greek immigrants began demanding its import from Europe. Initially an ethnic specialty, olive oil was soon embraced by mainstream American cooks.
- Now, in the 21st century, olive oil continues to grow in popularity, and plays a part in cuisines of virtually every culture. There are over 800 million olive trees in the world today with more being planted every day.
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Can Indian food be cooked in olive oil?
By Rasheeda Bhagat,
Can Indian food be cooked in olive oil? When this question was posed to celebrated Indian chef Sanjeev Kapur at a promotion campaign for olive oil and table olives organised by the International Olive Council in Delhi on Thursday, his reply was simple. “Of course it can, that’s a no brainer”.
Indian cuisine had always been very receptive. About 400 years ago, it hardly used things such as garlic, onions, potatoes or chillies and “today we describe all of it as tradition ingredients in Indian food. Who knows 500 years hence, we’ll say olive oil is a traditional ingredient in our food,” he added.
The council has zeroed in on the Indian market for popularising the consumption of table olives and olive oil for the year 2007.
Addressing the workshop Franco Oliva, deputy Director and Head of Promotions, International Olive Council, said this year the global production of olive oil had hit the three-million-tonne-mark, with Spain being the largest producer. It produces about 35-40 per cent of the world’s olive oil. Though the per capita consumption of olive oil in Greece – where the olive growing region in the Penelopese area was recently destroyed by forest fires wrecking havoc on the olive cultivation in the area – is the highest at 23 kg.
Collectively, the EU countries have the largest consumption of olive oil (79 per cent) followed by Syria (5 per cent) and Turkey and Tunisia, 4 per cent each.
Touching upon the health benefits of the Mediterranean cuisine, rich in olive oil, he said that two year ago, the US FDA had recognised its positive effect in preventing and reducing cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
The entire lunch, including desserts, at the Taj Palace Hotel where the workshop was organised was prepared using olive oil.
Santiago Botas, a Food and Olive Oil consultant from Spain, enumerated the different kinds of olive oil I the market – extra virgin, virgin and pomace and said extracted from a fruit – the olive – and sans any chemical treatment, this was the only edible oil which was a “pure fruit juice”.
Posted in Cashmere | Around, Health, Olive Oil by: Olives101
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L’olive: verte ou noire, un même “fruit du soleil”
“Un aïeul pour le planter, un père pour le tailler et toute une descendance pour récolter…”. La légende dit que l’olivier est immortel. Il est vrai que des pousses reconstituent l’arbre quand le tronc est détruit, lui donnant une longévité exceptionnelle: jusqu’à 5000 ans!
L’olivier appartient à la famille des oléacées, comme le frêne ou le lilas. C’est la déesse Athéna qui aurait apporté aux Grecs l’olivier et le figuier… En fait, les premières empreintes de “l’arbre de Minerve” remontent au paléolithique supérieur dans une zone qui s’étendait de la mer Morte au golfe arabo-persique, dans le “croissant fertile”. Ce sont les Phéniciens et les Grecs qui en firent la culture, puis les Romains l’implantèrent au fur et à mesure de leurs conquêtes.
Partageant avec le chêne vert le titre d’arbre méditerranéen, l’olivier aime les altitudes moyennes, une grande luminosité et des températures oscillant entre 16 et 20 degrés C. Il supporte difficilement les trop fortes chaleurs, les froids intenses et craint l’humidité.
Jusqu’à l’âge de sept ans, l’arbre ne produit pas de fleurs, et c’est seulement entre 35 et 55 ans qu’il arrive à pleine maturité. Il existe environ 140 variétés d’oliviers dont une quinzaine est plus particulièrement vouée à la production d’olives de table. Les fleurs apparaissent entre mars et mai selon les régions: c’est le vent qui transporte les pollens et seule une fleur sur vingt sera fécondée et donnera naissance au “fruit du soleil”.
L’olive est une drupe, c’est-à-dire un fruit à noyau. “Verte”, “tournante” ou “noire”, c’est un seul et même fruit, sa couleur dépendant uniquement du moment de la cueillette.
Une olive verte récoltée trop tôt aura une chair très dure et un goût de “bois”. A l’inverse, une récolte trop tardive donnera un fruit à plus forte teneur en corps gras.
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Grapeseed oil a hot new offering for restaurants
By Elisabeth Kalfsbeek,
While it is produced in Europe and South America as a byproduct of wine grapes, grapeseed oil is fast becoming California’s hot new commodity for retailers and restaurateurs alike.
“The market has grown dramatically,” said Matthieu Kohlneyer of La Tourangelle, an artisan producer of specialty and organic oils, in Woodland. “A lot of chefs are switching to grapeseed oil because it has a very high smoke point and is good to cook with. It also works very well for salad dressing. It’s very flexible and can be used for a diverse amount of things.”
Still, grapeseed oil remains a specialty, almost elusive, product because there are fewer producers and therefore is not as widely available as other oil-producing seed, nut and bean counterparts.
“Twenty to 30 years ago people here were mostly buying basic vegetable oil,” said Kohlneyer. “Then more people coming from the Mediterranean were using olive oil because it’s part of their culture. Olive oil is a foundation of Mediterranean cooking and people have been using it for 3,000 years. Every recipe calls for it,” he said.
Now a staple ingredient, olive oil has acted as a gateway product. “Olive oil made people know oil can be flavorful or not, good or bad,” Kohlneyer said. “People are going beyond that and trying grapeseed oil or walnut oil, for example. They want to be more detailed. Oil is a specific ingredient, like spices. You can use spices for different dishes, and oil becomes the same thing,” he said.
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