I am offering a 30% monthly discount for new one-year subscriptions.
With a one year subscription you receive:
My Ebook: Secrets From My Tuscan Kitchen
Access to my guides to the Markets of Italy, a downloadable app for 12 Italian Cities
Access to the archives
Every month, I share what’s in my Tuscan Pantry, La Dispensa. This month, I am focusing on Extra Virgin Olive Oil. We never use butter for cooking, only in pastries. But how do you know what is real? Here are some tips.
Extra virgin olive oil is made from the first cold pressing of olives. This ensures that the oil is extracted without the use of heat or chemicals.
EVOO should contain no more than 0.8% free acidity, versus up to 2% in virgin olive oil.
There are several regions which produce olive oil. Each has a different flavor profile.
In 1985, Florence experienced a huge snowstorm, which destroyed many olive trees in and around the city, including the Chianti region.
Many trees were cut down, assuming they had frozen and died. The remaining trunks then grew new growth.
Here, you can see the regrowth years after the hard snow and freeze in 1985.
Usually, three or four new shoots grew from the cut-off trunk.
Most of the farmers near me harvest by hand using a small comb or a tool to remove the unripe olives. They spread a net under the tree to catch the olives.
The trees are kept short so they can reach the olives easily.
At the olive mill cooperative near me, they set rules.
The olives must come from a 30km radius from the mill.
They must be crushed within 48 hours of being picked.
Each farmers harvest is rushed separately and the machines are cleaned between each crush.
In other areas, trees are left to grow higher, or sometimes they are on a hillside and need to be gathered black to shake them from the trees.
When the olives are ripe, they will easily fall off the tree and can be shaken off it. When they fall, if they are too ripe, they can bruise. You risk having the olives begin to ferment, and that would be a faulty oil.
This is a centuries-old wild olive tree in Sicily that does not grow olives. Look at the trunk.
This is an ancient tree from Puglia.
Puglia produces 60% of all olive oil in Italy. Much of it is used to “blend” in commercial olive oil production.
Recently, the trees have been attacked by an illness, Xylella, and had to be cut down.
This lovely tree is at my friend Rita’s Masseria in Puglia. Her oil is fabulous. The home was an olive oil mill as well as a summer home for her family. Now she lives there full time and runs a B&B and cooking school.
We also visited a chef’s farm with a restaurant in Puglia. His trees are significantly trimmed back.
Pietro was a consultant for farmers and then went into the kitchen. On our visits, we first tour the gardens. His menu is based on what is in season and then helped by what they preserve.
When looking for good oil, I want a cold-pressed oil.
At my local grocery store, I have several choices:
These are cold-pressed, extra virgin oils. Biologico means organic.
100% Italian means NOT Tuscan, but blended with other Italian oils from different olives.
Only the oil on the right is TUSCAN.
I don’t buy the oils in the bottle below. They are the more commercial oils made for my grocery store. I might buy them to cook with, but not use them raw. It's just my personal choice, as I have so much good oil available to me.
The oil on the left is cold-pressed, “Italian,” and the one on the right is “extra virgin,” blended with olive oils from the EU.
Not everyone actually makes oil from olives, some buy oil and blend.
These are blended oils.
To me this is an easy NO!!!
Plastic bottle, simply OLIVE OIL, and in small print, made from refined olive oil and “oil from virgin olives”? What does that mean?
This is the same sort of oil, but in glass.
When oil is refined, it can be added to color and create a flavor profile. I remember when olive oil was yellow. I asked and was told they thought Americans wouldn’t buy green oil. Over the years, more and more people have traveled and tasted the wonderful olive oil and now it is sold at a premium in the USA.
I found this woman outside my house one day, and she told me she lived in my house when she was single. She was at the frantoio next door, waiting to have her olives pressed. I asked if I could buy some of her oil, grabbed a 5-liter bottle, and walked back with her.
Many local olive oil frantoi (presses) work long hours because the harvest window is short.
You make a reservation to bring your olives in to be crushed and you bring your own containers and most wait with their olives.
When you do buy extra virgin olive oil, it should be in a dark green glass bottle and kept away from the sunlight.
Some producers are now selling their oil in decorative ceramic bottles, protecting the oil from sunlight.
What about cooking with EVOO?
Here is a post by Nancy Harmon Jenkins, author of Virgin Territory:Exploring the World of Olive Oil
Most farmers who produce their own oil cook with it. Use what you have. I buy my best-quality oil from local farms and supplement it with extra virgin oil from the grocery store.
My husband is Florentine, and we use a lot of oil! I have Tuscan, Pugliese, and Sicilian oils. When I cook something from Sicily or Puglia, the oil is essential.
You can fry with EVOO if it’s not a “faulty” oil. I stay away from any refined oils.
At home, you can fry in whatever oil you usually use and add extra virgin olive oil for flavor. I tend to pick sunflower oil as my light oil.
I also use it to make my mayonnaise. I find extra virgin oil too strong.
You can also use an excellent extra virgin olive oil for at least two years if it has been kept well. It loses some of it’s strong flavor, but is still good.
The oil here in Tuscany, where I live, is very peppery. I would use it as a finishing oil, to drizzle on dishes before serving. A little goes a long way.
🥰🥰🥰
Thanks for the shout-out, Judy! I had forgotten that piece on my website. It's interesting to read through the comments and see what everyone thinks, rightly or wrongly, about EVOO.