dooleysm
Platinum Member
I bet you never would have tried that Chicken a la King if you knew the cleanup was a 3 day ordeal! 
Hey Rox, what can you tell me about olive oil?
- Thread starter N80
- Start date
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FrogLick
Silver Member
George I too will be very interested in Rox's response to your post and I'm sure will correct any of my misunderstanding. In the mean time, here's my 2 cents for what it's worth:
- There is a great difference in taste between olive oils but just as with wine everyone will have preferances and different types will be better with different foods.
- The differences in taste depend upon multiple factors, e.g., olive variety, where they're grown, when they're harvested, how they're processed, how it's stored, etc.
- Generally the EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) types are the first cold pressings that have the closest character to the fruit from which they come.
- To extract the most oil possible, other processing may be done by some producers which involves additional pressings, heat and/or maybe even solvent (?) extraction methods. Although they may still be "pure olive oil", more processing usually means lower quality & lower price.
- Many mass marketed oils are often blends from different countries of origin and various levels of quality. Some will be okay but seldom as good as those from a single producer or more limited region.
- First cold press EVOOs are great to use with many simple preparations that allow their character to come through, quick cooking dishes, as a final top dressing finish for serving, and of course with salads. Nothing quite like a nice garden ripened tomatos, really fresh mozzarella cheese, & fresh basil just dressed with a little salt, pepper and good quality balsamic vinegar & EVOO!
- Lesser quality pure olive oils can be used for things that may involve higher heat, longer cooking and/or higher levels of seasoning that would mask the subtleties of the oil itself.
- Have a tasting to appreciate the differences; I'd use small white plastic spoons and use plain bread as a palate cleanser between tastes. Pick up several bottles at various price points and from different regions - Italy, France, Spain, Greece, even California. For your first tasting you might want to limit yourself to a single country but several quality levels, then move on to comparing different countries and regions. Compare the color, clarity, aroma, initial taste impression, mouth feel and finish. Expect to see colors ranging from brighter greens all the way down to pale yellows or even almost colorless. Some will be more filtered (or centrifuged) for clarity while some may be more raw and cloudy. Some will have more olive fruit aroma while some will have almost none. Some will taste more like fresh olive fruit, some peppery, some more acidic than others while some will be almost tasteless; the raw unfiltered types usually have a grittier feel in the mouth. The better oils will leave a cleaner finish in the mouth while the lesser ones will just leave an oily aftertaste.
It's all a lot like wine. I think it would be best if we could go to France and Italy for the wine harvest then stay through the olive harvest and pressing - I'm thinking maybe late August through about December? We'd eat and drink quite well but might have to charter a jumbo jet to get us back home though!
- There is a great difference in taste between olive oils but just as with wine everyone will have preferances and different types will be better with different foods.
- The differences in taste depend upon multiple factors, e.g., olive variety, where they're grown, when they're harvested, how they're processed, how it's stored, etc.
- Generally the EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) types are the first cold pressings that have the closest character to the fruit from which they come.
- To extract the most oil possible, other processing may be done by some producers which involves additional pressings, heat and/or maybe even solvent (?) extraction methods. Although they may still be "pure olive oil", more processing usually means lower quality & lower price.
- Many mass marketed oils are often blends from different countries of origin and various levels of quality. Some will be okay but seldom as good as those from a single producer or more limited region.
- First cold press EVOOs are great to use with many simple preparations that allow their character to come through, quick cooking dishes, as a final top dressing finish for serving, and of course with salads. Nothing quite like a nice garden ripened tomatos, really fresh mozzarella cheese, & fresh basil just dressed with a little salt, pepper and good quality balsamic vinegar & EVOO!
- Lesser quality pure olive oils can be used for things that may involve higher heat, longer cooking and/or higher levels of seasoning that would mask the subtleties of the oil itself.
- Have a tasting to appreciate the differences; I'd use small white plastic spoons and use plain bread as a palate cleanser between tastes. Pick up several bottles at various price points and from different regions - Italy, France, Spain, Greece, even California. For your first tasting you might want to limit yourself to a single country but several quality levels, then move on to comparing different countries and regions. Compare the color, clarity, aroma, initial taste impression, mouth feel and finish. Expect to see colors ranging from brighter greens all the way down to pale yellows or even almost colorless. Some will be more filtered (or centrifuged) for clarity while some may be more raw and cloudy. Some will have more olive fruit aroma while some will have almost none. Some will taste more like fresh olive fruit, some peppery, some more acidic than others while some will be almost tasteless; the raw unfiltered types usually have a grittier feel in the mouth. The better oils will leave a cleaner finish in the mouth while the lesser ones will just leave an oily aftertaste.
It's all a lot like wine. I think it would be best if we could go to France and Italy for the wine harvest then stay through the olive harvest and pressing - I'm thinking maybe late August through about December? We'd eat and drink quite well but might have to charter a jumbo jet to get us back home though!
Jimbrown
Veteran Member
I just hate in when I go to the resturants and they give you the little bowls of olive oil and some hot bread to eat before the meal. That and my salad I am ready to go home.
rox
Veteran Member
George,ra Virgin has
FrogLick (I wonder how he got that screen name!?!) has a pretty good start.
First off you should know that there are absolutly no laws at all in the Unted States defining Extra Virgin Olive Oil. In Europe we have laws that properly label olive oil. Extra Virgin Olive Oil EVOO has >=0.8% acidity. A cap on Peroxide and msut only be derived from mechanical means. This gets to FrogLicks point about solvents and heat being used to extract more oil.
There are 3 Catagories of Olive Oil in France.
Fruité Vert- Generally olives are picked early int he season and pressed within 24 - 48 hours. The flavor is described as "Fruity" "Floral" "Vegetal/Grassy"
Fruite Noir - You pick the olives early in the season and then you ferment the olives before pressing. I ahve seen this done in 3 different ways.
#1 -The first way the olives are put in pallet boxes (a plastic box made especially for olives with air holes the size of a pallet and about 3 1/2 feet tall) and then left in a room that is heated say around 80 degrees F or so.
#2 - The second way is the olives are put in a pallet box and then the box is wrapped in saran wrap (plastic film) and they sit inside the mill at the normal mill temperature for 2 to 3 days. After the olvies have fermented they then go through the regular milling process.
#3 - Olives are picked early and old stone mill is used and then the oils seeps through hemp mats to filter out the bits of fruit.
In all of these methods the oil comes out with a kind of mushroomy flavor, some would say nutty or earthy.
Fruite Mure- Olives are picked late int eh season when they are black. The oil comes out kind of musty if you ask me.
Out of these 3 classifications the best IMHO is Fruite Vert IF and a big IF you have good variatal olive trees. Not all olive trees produce oil fit for consumption, those variatals are used to make table olives. It is kind of like apples and crab apples, sure they are both apples but you don't eat crab apples becuse they are bitter tasting. Variatals of olvie trees are the same way. We grow Aglandau, Bouteillan, Grossane, and Salonenque variatals of olive trees. All 4 of these trees produce exceptionally fine tasting oil each one has a unique flavor like a granny smith apple tastes different than a golden delicious. Both Granny Smith and Golden Delicious are great tasting apples it all comes down to personal preference. Same with olvie oil, some people hate the Aglandau because it is peppery some people love it because it is peppery.
Then it is the Terrior as the French say or "the land" and the micro environment that is tranmitted into the taste of the olive and the oil of the olive. I did a formal training in France for olive oil tasting. One thing was amazing to me. We grow the Aglandau olive on our farm, I tasted oil pure Aglandau oil that is grown maybe 75 miles north of us and that same Aglandau comes out tasting exactly like bannanas. I'm not kidding this oil tasted exactly like banannas. Next year I'm going to go buy some and sell it. That particulr oil for a chef would be awsome! I can just taste it in Bannas Foster. So you might try an oil that you like and note the variatal but when grown in a different location it can taste completely, completely different.
FrogLick was right about tasting it with a plastic spoon. Never taste with metal as it distors the flavor. Uee a small plastic cup or glass or a plastic spoon.
This is the milling process. Onlives go on a conveyer and the leaves and branches are blown off, they pass under a spray to wash off the filed dirt, they are crushed pitts and all (the pits do not change the flavor of the oil as the pitt is woody not fruity), the crushed olive paste is put in a big maloxer, kind of like a bread kneeding machine to gently kneed the crushed olive paste to get it to relese the oil from the ground up fruit.
Here is where cold press comes in. You can get more oil out of that paste if you put a heat source under the maloxer. In order to be cold pressed by European standards the temeperature of the paste can't exceed if forget I think it is around 24 degrees celcius. Now mills are not heated and we press in November and December so this is not a problem. We don't do anything to make it colder than the ambient temperture of the mill room.
This next part I can't write about accurately as i have not seen it but after the maloxing is done then the paste is squeezed and the oil and water mixture is put in a big centrifuge and spun. The oil is lighter and comes out the top and the water is sucked out the bottom. OR it is put on mats about 6ft tall and it slowly drips throught he mats until finally at the bottom you jsut get olive oil. The mat system produces a musty oil.
For sellign tot he Untied States they don't have to follow any of these laws since the oil is exported. They can heat it up all they want and add solvents to eliminate the taste. Why eliminate the taste? Well if the variatal of olives you are pressing produces yucky tasting oil they have no choice but to refine it to remove all taste so you cna't tell that at one time it was yucky tasting.
My personal opinion I like the olvie oils that are more yellow colored. To many fo the green oilive oils taste bitter. Now there is a difference between bitter and pepper the two are entirely different.
Then there is the "Piquant" of the oil, the "pique" s they say in French. Oil jsut after it is pressed will typically leave a pick (not bitterness) at the back of your throat. Sfter a month or so in some oils this goes away entirely in other oils it stays. Some like the pique some hate it. Mostly I ahve found Americans don't care for it. Now a small pique at the back of your throat is okay but not on your tounge. You should not feel it at the front of your mouth. As you become an olive oil connosieur you will differentiate between a pique and bitterness. Nobody not anybody like bitter olvie oil. Once you use the olive oil on your food you will not notice a pique at all. You always will notice a peppery taste though, and again for some people that is what they want and for others they hate it.
I will say one thing if you buy our olive oil you WILL find out what really good premium olive oil tastes like. You can learn on ours which will give you a very good background for exploring others if you care to. Olive oil should have flavor! Even mild/soft olive oils should have flavor to them. Then there is intensity of flavor. There is grassy tasting and then there is straw tasting, whihc one would you rather enjoy? The oil that tastes like a sweet blade of summer grass or one that tastes like a bale of hay?
i would say that you first need to taste oil by varietal then go to blends. Learn if you like Bouteillan Olive Oil and then try different producers of Bouteillan. it is no different than wine. You know if you like Chardonnay and can taste chardonnay from different wine producers. You also know the difference between a chardonnay and a sauvignon blanc. Both are white wines but you know which of these 2 white wines you like better for what you are eating or just generally. You do the same thing with olive oil. You learn what variatal of olives the oil is made from and find out which ones you like then try it out from different producers and then how it is pressed. How it is pressed will completely change the flavor of the oil. Like night and day. Mainly to start with don't try any oils that are stone mill ground. You have to look long and hard to find a good one. I did try a couple that in the right dish I would enjoy but this I woould save for advanced level since why wate your money.
The questions to ask are
-What varietal of olives
-where it is grown
-are the olives fermented before they are pressed
-Does the mill uses crushing plates or stones to crush the olvies.
The reason the stone mills provide that musty flavor is becasue it is awfully hard to clean the stones. So fermented olives build up on the stones and give off that must flavor. Int eh modern mills the crushing plates are cleaned (or they should be0 every day adn the maloxers also. This is where as an olvie producers I am watching my mill. I don't want my olvies crushed in plates that have old olive paste in them form 3 days ago, that yucky flavor goes right into my oil, my nice fresh olvies that I ahve rushed to the mill.
Then there is the farmers. Most, like 98% of the farmers sell all their oil to the mill. There is a constant back and forth with the mill owners and the farmers. The mill wants the olvies fresh but the farmers are not going to make that last night run and will save it for the next day. After all at the end of the day the mill is going to buy your oil anyway weather you rushed your olives over or waited a day or two until you ahd a full load.
Then there is the disputes eith the community/village oil. People bring in olvies and they are weighed and dumped int the community pallet box. Once the box is full the olvies are pressed adn the oil goes in the community vat. At the end of the season everyone comes to pick up their portion of the oil. Well people try to sneak in rotten olvies which fo course ruins the oil in the vat. The mill has a conflict of interest since there interest is to press as many kilos of olives as possible since you pay for the pressing by the kilo. But then if the community oil tastes bad people loudly complain and then next year go to a different mill. The mill we go to now inspects the community olives when they are broght in and thows them int he good fruit box or the bad fruit box. At the end of the season you get oil out of one of those two vats. Of course this leads to many arguments as everybody bringing in rotten fruit, fruit that has been on the ground instead of freshly picked fruit fights to have thier fruit classified as good fruit. Trust me it is a real circus at the mills. When a certain customer comes in the manager will say to the employee, "Check his fruit real good last year he tried to hide rotten fruit on the bottom" People remember fromm year to year. I cna't explain it is jsut a circus. You have little old ladies bringing in maybe 2lbs of olives in her little basket, meaning she is going to get about a cup of olive oil but she hand picks her olives and brings them to the mill because she and her mother and her granmother and her great grandmother have always picked their olives adn taken them to the mill, only to return in December to retrieve their oil.
The one thing our mill does is take care of the professional producers. We get unlaoded and weighed in right away. We don't wait until the end of the season to take some of our oil. And they don't hold onto our olives, ours get pressed right away adn the oil is put into our own personal vats that are kept at the mill, not mixed in with anybody elses. Plsu ours go through the press without being mixed. Now the yield I have issues with from time to time. In order to get the throughput they can run the maloxers shorter which decreases my yield. And also everyone and I mean everyone says that the mill steals oil form you. And really how can I know if they do or they don't? We are to busy with our farm work to sit there and wait around for the time when our olvies are pressed whihc is msotly about 2 int he morning. I jsut ahve to trust if they are stealing form us that they are nto stealing to much. on every pressing I get a report of the weight of the olives I brought in and the liters of oil it produced. I had a serious discussion with our first load of Bouteillan as it only yieled 14 point something percent. Yikes! I had a discussion about that and after that the yields went up so I know they were not maloxing the olives enough.
But then also you cna't malox them to much as then you loose the flavor. Oxygen kills olive oil. This is why we press very fast after picking as soon as they are picked they start to degrade because of oxygen. Our mill and some other mills now cover the maloxers to prevent oxygen form entering during maloxing. There is research on this but the latest French research didn't show a difference between an open to the air maloxer and a closed one so I don't have my mind made up on that yet.
I hope I have given you enough information to begin your journey into olive oil. The good ones have high polyphenols in them whihc is very very good for you and actually aids in chemotherapy. One study I read and it was buy American Doctors I think out of Northwestern University in Evenston Illinois if I'm not mistaken, showed that consuming a small amount of olvie oil with chemotherapy drugs reduced the amount of chemo given for the smae result. I probably didn't say that right. Gist is drink olive oil while taking chemo and you don't need to administer as much chemo for the exact same theraputic result. I think it was for breat cancer, i'm pretty sure. Anyway I'll did that up I saved it. Course I ahd a hard drive crash but I think i might still avhe it. there are many many other health studies showing the benefits of olive oil. The thing is the amount of polyphenols in olive oil is variable depending on the variatal of olives, how soon they are pressed and where theya re grown.
We participated in a European Research project and send in our oil. Every one of the samples we sent in 9I either sent four or five) scored the highest in allt he sampes tested which showed that our oil was pressed right after picking. We also got a very nice report on the polyphenols in our oil (polyphenols are a VERY good thing they are antioxidents cancer fighting chemicals naturally found in olive oil) and we scored very high in polyphenols. There are some oisl that do score higher but generally the highest coring olive oils in polyphenols are very very very bitter and nobody would want to eat them. I felt after reading the chemical analysis of our oil that we had a home run. We hve very excellent tasting oil that is high in polyphenols. And with that I think I'll quit.
FrogLick (I wonder how he got that screen name!?!) has a pretty good start.
First off you should know that there are absolutly no laws at all in the Unted States defining Extra Virgin Olive Oil. In Europe we have laws that properly label olive oil. Extra Virgin Olive Oil EVOO has >=0.8% acidity. A cap on Peroxide and msut only be derived from mechanical means. This gets to FrogLicks point about solvents and heat being used to extract more oil.
There are 3 Catagories of Olive Oil in France.
Fruité Vert- Generally olives are picked early int he season and pressed within 24 - 48 hours. The flavor is described as "Fruity" "Floral" "Vegetal/Grassy"
Fruite Noir - You pick the olives early in the season and then you ferment the olives before pressing. I ahve seen this done in 3 different ways.
#1 -The first way the olives are put in pallet boxes (a plastic box made especially for olives with air holes the size of a pallet and about 3 1/2 feet tall) and then left in a room that is heated say around 80 degrees F or so.
#2 - The second way is the olives are put in a pallet box and then the box is wrapped in saran wrap (plastic film) and they sit inside the mill at the normal mill temperature for 2 to 3 days. After the olvies have fermented they then go through the regular milling process.
#3 - Olives are picked early and old stone mill is used and then the oils seeps through hemp mats to filter out the bits of fruit.
In all of these methods the oil comes out with a kind of mushroomy flavor, some would say nutty or earthy.
Fruite Mure- Olives are picked late int eh season when they are black. The oil comes out kind of musty if you ask me.
Out of these 3 classifications the best IMHO is Fruite Vert IF and a big IF you have good variatal olive trees. Not all olive trees produce oil fit for consumption, those variatals are used to make table olives. It is kind of like apples and crab apples, sure they are both apples but you don't eat crab apples becuse they are bitter tasting. Variatals of olvie trees are the same way. We grow Aglandau, Bouteillan, Grossane, and Salonenque variatals of olive trees. All 4 of these trees produce exceptionally fine tasting oil each one has a unique flavor like a granny smith apple tastes different than a golden delicious. Both Granny Smith and Golden Delicious are great tasting apples it all comes down to personal preference. Same with olvie oil, some people hate the Aglandau because it is peppery some people love it because it is peppery.
Then it is the Terrior as the French say or "the land" and the micro environment that is tranmitted into the taste of the olive and the oil of the olive. I did a formal training in France for olive oil tasting. One thing was amazing to me. We grow the Aglandau olive on our farm, I tasted oil pure Aglandau oil that is grown maybe 75 miles north of us and that same Aglandau comes out tasting exactly like bannanas. I'm not kidding this oil tasted exactly like banannas. Next year I'm going to go buy some and sell it. That particulr oil for a chef would be awsome! I can just taste it in Bannas Foster. So you might try an oil that you like and note the variatal but when grown in a different location it can taste completely, completely different.
FrogLick was right about tasting it with a plastic spoon. Never taste with metal as it distors the flavor. Uee a small plastic cup or glass or a plastic spoon.
This is the milling process. Onlives go on a conveyer and the leaves and branches are blown off, they pass under a spray to wash off the filed dirt, they are crushed pitts and all (the pits do not change the flavor of the oil as the pitt is woody not fruity), the crushed olive paste is put in a big maloxer, kind of like a bread kneeding machine to gently kneed the crushed olive paste to get it to relese the oil from the ground up fruit.
Here is where cold press comes in. You can get more oil out of that paste if you put a heat source under the maloxer. In order to be cold pressed by European standards the temeperature of the paste can't exceed if forget I think it is around 24 degrees celcius. Now mills are not heated and we press in November and December so this is not a problem. We don't do anything to make it colder than the ambient temperture of the mill room.
This next part I can't write about accurately as i have not seen it but after the maloxing is done then the paste is squeezed and the oil and water mixture is put in a big centrifuge and spun. The oil is lighter and comes out the top and the water is sucked out the bottom. OR it is put on mats about 6ft tall and it slowly drips throught he mats until finally at the bottom you jsut get olive oil. The mat system produces a musty oil.
For sellign tot he Untied States they don't have to follow any of these laws since the oil is exported. They can heat it up all they want and add solvents to eliminate the taste. Why eliminate the taste? Well if the variatal of olives you are pressing produces yucky tasting oil they have no choice but to refine it to remove all taste so you cna't tell that at one time it was yucky tasting.
My personal opinion I like the olvie oils that are more yellow colored. To many fo the green oilive oils taste bitter. Now there is a difference between bitter and pepper the two are entirely different.
Then there is the "Piquant" of the oil, the "pique" s they say in French. Oil jsut after it is pressed will typically leave a pick (not bitterness) at the back of your throat. Sfter a month or so in some oils this goes away entirely in other oils it stays. Some like the pique some hate it. Mostly I ahve found Americans don't care for it. Now a small pique at the back of your throat is okay but not on your tounge. You should not feel it at the front of your mouth. As you become an olive oil connosieur you will differentiate between a pique and bitterness. Nobody not anybody like bitter olvie oil. Once you use the olive oil on your food you will not notice a pique at all. You always will notice a peppery taste though, and again for some people that is what they want and for others they hate it.
I will say one thing if you buy our olive oil you WILL find out what really good premium olive oil tastes like. You can learn on ours which will give you a very good background for exploring others if you care to. Olive oil should have flavor! Even mild/soft olive oils should have flavor to them. Then there is intensity of flavor. There is grassy tasting and then there is straw tasting, whihc one would you rather enjoy? The oil that tastes like a sweet blade of summer grass or one that tastes like a bale of hay?
i would say that you first need to taste oil by varietal then go to blends. Learn if you like Bouteillan Olive Oil and then try different producers of Bouteillan. it is no different than wine. You know if you like Chardonnay and can taste chardonnay from different wine producers. You also know the difference between a chardonnay and a sauvignon blanc. Both are white wines but you know which of these 2 white wines you like better for what you are eating or just generally. You do the same thing with olive oil. You learn what variatal of olives the oil is made from and find out which ones you like then try it out from different producers and then how it is pressed. How it is pressed will completely change the flavor of the oil. Like night and day. Mainly to start with don't try any oils that are stone mill ground. You have to look long and hard to find a good one. I did try a couple that in the right dish I would enjoy but this I woould save for advanced level since why wate your money.
The questions to ask are
-What varietal of olives
-where it is grown
-are the olives fermented before they are pressed
-Does the mill uses crushing plates or stones to crush the olvies.
The reason the stone mills provide that musty flavor is becasue it is awfully hard to clean the stones. So fermented olives build up on the stones and give off that must flavor. Int eh modern mills the crushing plates are cleaned (or they should be0 every day adn the maloxers also. This is where as an olvie producers I am watching my mill. I don't want my olvies crushed in plates that have old olive paste in them form 3 days ago, that yucky flavor goes right into my oil, my nice fresh olvies that I ahve rushed to the mill.
Then there is the farmers. Most, like 98% of the farmers sell all their oil to the mill. There is a constant back and forth with the mill owners and the farmers. The mill wants the olvies fresh but the farmers are not going to make that last night run and will save it for the next day. After all at the end of the day the mill is going to buy your oil anyway weather you rushed your olives over or waited a day or two until you ahd a full load.
Then there is the disputes eith the community/village oil. People bring in olvies and they are weighed and dumped int the community pallet box. Once the box is full the olvies are pressed adn the oil goes in the community vat. At the end of the season everyone comes to pick up their portion of the oil. Well people try to sneak in rotten olvies which fo course ruins the oil in the vat. The mill has a conflict of interest since there interest is to press as many kilos of olives as possible since you pay for the pressing by the kilo. But then if the community oil tastes bad people loudly complain and then next year go to a different mill. The mill we go to now inspects the community olives when they are broght in and thows them int he good fruit box or the bad fruit box. At the end of the season you get oil out of one of those two vats. Of course this leads to many arguments as everybody bringing in rotten fruit, fruit that has been on the ground instead of freshly picked fruit fights to have thier fruit classified as good fruit. Trust me it is a real circus at the mills. When a certain customer comes in the manager will say to the employee, "Check his fruit real good last year he tried to hide rotten fruit on the bottom" People remember fromm year to year. I cna't explain it is jsut a circus. You have little old ladies bringing in maybe 2lbs of olives in her little basket, meaning she is going to get about a cup of olive oil but she hand picks her olives and brings them to the mill because she and her mother and her granmother and her great grandmother have always picked their olives adn taken them to the mill, only to return in December to retrieve their oil.
The one thing our mill does is take care of the professional producers. We get unlaoded and weighed in right away. We don't wait until the end of the season to take some of our oil. And they don't hold onto our olives, ours get pressed right away adn the oil is put into our own personal vats that are kept at the mill, not mixed in with anybody elses. Plsu ours go through the press without being mixed. Now the yield I have issues with from time to time. In order to get the throughput they can run the maloxers shorter which decreases my yield. And also everyone and I mean everyone says that the mill steals oil form you. And really how can I know if they do or they don't? We are to busy with our farm work to sit there and wait around for the time when our olvies are pressed whihc is msotly about 2 int he morning. I jsut ahve to trust if they are stealing form us that they are nto stealing to much. on every pressing I get a report of the weight of the olives I brought in and the liters of oil it produced. I had a serious discussion with our first load of Bouteillan as it only yieled 14 point something percent. Yikes! I had a discussion about that and after that the yields went up so I know they were not maloxing the olives enough.
But then also you cna't malox them to much as then you loose the flavor. Oxygen kills olive oil. This is why we press very fast after picking as soon as they are picked they start to degrade because of oxygen. Our mill and some other mills now cover the maloxers to prevent oxygen form entering during maloxing. There is research on this but the latest French research didn't show a difference between an open to the air maloxer and a closed one so I don't have my mind made up on that yet.
I hope I have given you enough information to begin your journey into olive oil. The good ones have high polyphenols in them whihc is very very good for you and actually aids in chemotherapy. One study I read and it was buy American Doctors I think out of Northwestern University in Evenston Illinois if I'm not mistaken, showed that consuming a small amount of olvie oil with chemotherapy drugs reduced the amount of chemo given for the smae result. I probably didn't say that right. Gist is drink olive oil while taking chemo and you don't need to administer as much chemo for the exact same theraputic result. I think it was for breat cancer, i'm pretty sure. Anyway I'll did that up I saved it. Course I ahd a hard drive crash but I think i might still avhe it. there are many many other health studies showing the benefits of olive oil. The thing is the amount of polyphenols in olive oil is variable depending on the variatal of olives, how soon they are pressed and where theya re grown.
We participated in a European Research project and send in our oil. Every one of the samples we sent in 9I either sent four or five) scored the highest in allt he sampes tested which showed that our oil was pressed right after picking. We also got a very nice report on the polyphenols in our oil (polyphenols are a VERY good thing they are antioxidents cancer fighting chemicals naturally found in olive oil) and we scored very high in polyphenols. There are some oisl that do score higher but generally the highest coring olive oils in polyphenols are very very very bitter and nobody would want to eat them. I felt after reading the chemical analysis of our oil that we had a home run. We hve very excellent tasting oil that is high in polyphenols. And with that I think I'll quit.
OP
N80
Super Member
Thanks Rox, that's just what I needed to know. I appreciate you taking the time to give us all the details. Very interesting stuff.
I'm sort of taking my cues from Italian chef Mario Batali (he had a TV show). He has mentioned several times on his show and several times in one of his cookbooks that he likes olive oil with a peppery flavor. He also mentions cooking with a lesser oil and dressing food with a higher quality oil.
I'm sort of taking my cues from Italian chef Mario Batali (he had a TV show). He has mentioned several times on his show and several times in one of his cookbooks that he likes olive oil with a peppery flavor. He also mentions cooking with a lesser oil and dressing food with a higher quality oil.
rox
Veteran Member
I bet the chef is from Tuscany, true non refined olive oil most varaitals in Tuscany are peppery, very peppery. Watch out though because a little pepper can give a bit of spice but a lot of pepper is well... not that great. You don't taste any fruit you just taste pepper, I mean really hot in your mouth. it overpowers the food.
France has an oil a Picholine, you go in the areas that produce the Picholine and they swear that is what olive oil should taste like but honestly I really don't like that oil. It has a metalic taste to it. It does make a very good table olive though, very good.
If you go to Tuscany and produce a mild olive oil that is very fruity they won't like it becaue it is not what they grew up with. But all we professionls know a good oil when we taste it. I can pick out a very very good peppery oil from a peppery oil that is hiding/masking rancidity and moldy flavors that are therre also. There is a fine line between nutty tasting oil and moldy tasting oil.
Basically what you will find is that regionally everyone thinks their oil is best. This is what olive oil should taste like they say. But then you try a different oil and you say to yourself well this great chef said this one is the best but you know what I like this one better. It is like night and day you can't sompare a Bordeaux wine and a Provence Rosé. Regionally each area will say theirs is best. You just have to get out there and try a bunch and find your sweet spot.
Focus on finding defects in the oils, rancid undertones, metalic tasting, no flavor, bitter, moldy, musty, straw flavor instead of herb flavored. Trust me a lot of defective oil is sent to the United States because there are no laws against it. And the general public in the Untied States has not been exposed to good olive oil it is only reenctly becoming a viable cash crop in California. Olive Oils should not taste yucky. If it tastes yucky it isn't good olive oil.
OP
N80
Super Member
The two or three inexpensive olive oils that I have cooked with mostly just don't have much flavor. There is nothing objectionable about them, just not much to make them stand out. They taste 'green' to me. In a good way. Maybe that's the 'grassy' flavor you mention. Other than that I don't get much from them. Will begin experimenting with some better olive oils.
But, this cooking game gets expensive fast when you start buying high quality prosciutto de parma, good parmigianno reggiono, pecorino romagna, etc etc. And good olive oil is no exception. Quite pricey. But, if you want the good stuff you have to pay for it. And I think once I find one that I like I'll probably stick with it.
Chef Batali, who is a traditional cook, prefers Tenuta di Cappezana from Tuscany, Castello di Ama from the Chianti region, and very surprisingly an olive oil called Da Vera which is made in California from trees imported from Lucca. This is the one he describes as having a "rich and peppery intensity".
I'm going to see if I can find these and yours and give them a try.
But, this cooking game gets expensive fast when you start buying high quality prosciutto de parma, good parmigianno reggiono, pecorino romagna, etc etc. And good olive oil is no exception. Quite pricey. But, if you want the good stuff you have to pay for it. And I think once I find one that I like I'll probably stick with it.
Chef Batali, who is a traditional cook, prefers Tenuta di Cappezana from Tuscany, Castello di Ama from the Chianti region, and very surprisingly an olive oil called Da Vera which is made in California from trees imported from Lucca. This is the one he describes as having a "rich and peppery intensity".
I'm going to see if I can find these and yours and give them a try.
FrogLick
Silver Member
Rox I very much enjoyed your explanations about high quality olive oil production. You are absolutely right that every producer, country, and region claims their oil to be the best! I appreciate the pride that smaller growers/producers have for their product and think it goes beyond the obvious commercial self interest of the big exporter/importers. That being said, I also think that when cooking food of a particular region it's often good to use other ingredients from the same region. It kind of goes back to that terroir thing and products that grow together often taste good together. Without a doubt some of the best olive oil I have tasted was in France and I did bring some home with me - keep the souvenir T-shirts, I'll take the oil! I hope some day I'll have the opportunity to taste some of your Mas des Bories, hopefully near the source.
Podunkadunk
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2007
- Messages
- 1,185
Rox,
Is it possible for you to ship to Alabama? My wife loves cooking with Olive Oil and I'd like for her to have the "best"!
How much do you get for a bottle of your favorite oil? If it's not too expensive, I'd like to get 4 or so. Is this possible?
Podunk
Is it possible for you to ship to Alabama? My wife loves cooking with Olive Oil and I'd like for her to have the "best"!
How much do you get for a bottle of your favorite oil? If it's not too expensive, I'd like to get 4 or so. Is this possible?
Podunk
OP
