Food + Drink

"Olive Oil Demystified"

By Lucy Burningham

Published in Mix magazine, Holiday Issue 07

For a fruit, an olive isn’t that sexy looking—no downy peach fuzz, no taut, shiny Bing cherry skin, no voluptuous burgundy curves and folds of a Brandywine tomato. An olive is small and simple and mostly (olive) drab. Yet an olive possesses something more sensual and delicious than the prettiest of fruits: oil. Unctuous, fragrant and complex—with flavors ranging from almond to apple to bittersweet artichoke—olive oil is an ancient product that still fascinates the modern cook. And it’s good for us.

Americans are going crazy for olive oil and nowadays there are scads to choose from, but surveying a shelf of oils can be a daunting task. Domestic or imported? Tins or glass bottles? Cold-pressed, first pressing or no mention of a press? Extra-virgin or light?

Understanding a few simple facts will help you choose the best extra-virgin “finishing” olive oils for your kitchen, the kind of oils that are so flavorful and delicate (not to mention expensive) that you’ll want to use them sparingly and only during the last minutes of cooking or without any heat at all. A term for this kind of oil that says it all is “anointing oil.”

The term “extra-virgin,” according to the International Olive Oil Council, means the oil has an acidity level of less than 1 percent and meets certain flavor standards. Unfortunately, the term doesn’t really mean anything for domestic oils, at least not in a legal sense. Only the California Olive Oil Council has adopted the international standards in this country. Unless you see the California council’s seal of approval on California oils, it’s hard to know exactly what you’re getting.

Buy from a trusted purveyor. For cooking, use an extra-virgin for the best flavor, but choose a cheaper, mass-produced brand such as Colavita or Bertolli, which may or may not be 100 percent extra-virgin, but it will be good enough to pour into a hot frying pan.

The path from olive to oil
The path from tree to table has improved, so good oil is easier to find. Modern oil producers can choose from a few different production methods, but essentially, all oils result from the same process. How the oil is extracted greatly affects the flavor profile, but the character of the olives themselves (variety, quality and ripeness) is the strongest determiner of the final product.

Get the fruit off the tree quickly
Olives are picked by hand, caught by nets under the trees, or combed or shaken from the tree by machines. The key is for the olives to be gathered gently to avoid bruising and then transported to mill as quickly as possible to avoid any oxidation and fermentation and to capture the best possible flavor — and have a shot at being classified as extra-virgin. Some oils are “estate bottled,” which means olives from the producer’s own property end up in a bottle, as opposed to oils made from olives grown in a wider area.

Crush to start the oil flowing
The just-harvested olives are washed and stripped of their leaves. In the old days, stone grinding mills crushed the fruit into a paste, but today, stainless steel machinery does the job. The paste, which includes pieces of pits, is mixed in a different machine with warm water (up to 26 degrees Celcius, as determined by the I.O.O.C.), which encourages small droplets of oil to combine into larger ones. In the past, the term “cold-pressed” was used to distinguish mechanically produced extra-virgin oils from refined blends made using very high heat. But these days, since everyone uses warm water that doesn’t harm the quality of the oil, the term “cold-pressed” is irrelevant — it’s all cold-pressed. But that hasn’t stopped producers from printing the term on labels, because many consumers still believe the term represents a higher-quality oil.

Press, spin or skim to capture the oil
A machine separates the olive pomace, or solids, from water (olive “juice”) and olive oil. In some cases, a hydraulic press applies force to discs covered in past, while in other instances a centrifuge does the job, or a machine skims oil off the surface of the paste. In the past, a manufacturer might repress the pomace to squeeze out all the oil, but with today’s equipment, that’s not necessary. All extra-virgin oils are now “first pressed,” another obsolete term that frequently appears on labels.

Bottle the oil straight away to preserve the boldest flavors
The oil rests in large containers for a few days to a few months so sediments can settle and be removed. In contrast, “new oil” (you’ll sometimes see the term olio nuovo on Italian oils) is bottled immediately, which captures the oil’s vibrant flavors but gives it a shorter shelf life because the solid matter will oxidize sooner. Some oils, both regular and new, are filtered before bottling.

Choosing the right oil for you
When choosing a bottle, an oil’s flavor profile should influence you more than any other factor. Luan Schooler, co-owner of Foster & Dobbs, first asks her customers how they plan to use the oil, then which flavors they would prefer. For example, “big and robust” might mean a Tuscan oil, while “soft and delicate” would lead her to recommend something from France.

If possible, always taste an oil before purchasing it. At importer and wholesale distributor Provvista, which imports olive oils from small family-run estates including Pianogrillo in Sicily and Pietrantica in Liguria, the staff tastes oils by sipping small amounts from spoons while at the same time sucking up air in order to aerate the oil. It’s almost an “atomizing” effect — sounds funny but does a good job of releasing the oil’s flavor and aromas. They munch on plain crackers in between to clear their palates.

Jim Dixon, who sells five kinds of imported Italian olive oil, offers visitors to his booth at the Portland Farmer’s Market small pieces of bread for dipping. He says that professional olive oil tasters sip their samples from cobalt blue bowls so the oil’s color from influence their opinion (a green tint does not represent freshness or quality, as many people assume), but that “any kind of taste will help the average person determine an oil’s balance of fruitiness, bitterness and pungency.”

But if tasting isn’t an option, consider other factors, starting with cost. “If you really want a good olive oil, one that will set a standard from which to judge all others, buy one of the top dollar Italian oils from Tuscany, Umbria or even Sicily,” says Nancy Harmon Jenkins, Mediterranean food expert and author (her latest book is “Cucina del Sol: A Celebration of Southern Italian Cooking,” WilliamMorrow). As a general rule, the best oils are expensive to produce and therefore cost the most, and can range anywhere from $40 to $100 per liter.

In addition, freshness counts, as olive oil loses flavor and life over time. While not all labels feature a bottling date, those that do should show that the oil was made within the past two years, at the most. Harvests happen between November and January, and this year’s oils are usually available in the U.S. starting in late winter and early spring.

Consider how the oils are stored. “Never buy the bottle in the store window, as olive oil’s two enemies are light and heat,” says Harmon Jenkins. “In fact, I’m against displaying oil on shelves altogether,” she adds. Beware of clear glass bottles. And because metal protects better than glass, tins are a good choice. At home, store the oil in a cool, dark place with the cap tightly closed. And buy small quantities (which isn’t hard when you’re talking about these prices), so the oil won’t go rancid before you use it up.

So explore the possibilities. “It’s OK to have two or three different, really nice oils,” Schooler says. “Think of them as a spice, as another flavor that can really help you tailor your dishes.”