The Roots of a Tree
I used to think that all olive oil was the same and that quality was mere marketing and sales talk. Until one day in hospitality school where I was managing inventory for the food & beverage sections for all the restaurants in my school. I discovered a cupboard with a dozen olive oil bottles, from small canisters to larger jugs. I asked my teacher about this, and he rewarded my curiosity with a small tasting session. He grabs one of the small canisters, hands me a spoon with the bright green juice.
Prior to that I had never really consciously tasted supermarket olive oil, but here I am sipping olive oil like a wine tasting. It changed everything I knew about olive oil. Instead of the bitter, harsh and throat scratching olive oil much like a too young whiskey or cognac. This was better, richer, denser and entered the mouth like butter and glided through your throat like honey. It had a much wider taste palette, the first one I tasted had hints of flowers and definitely a sweeter undertone, where the other one was richer and a bit grassy. Now these oils are not something you use every day but more as a finisher or to be paired with a crusty sourdough, mind you these oils can set you back €30 for a small bottle.
On a price note, may I present to you E-LA-WON Luxury Edition, a 500ml (16oz) bottle of olive oil from Mykonos for the small price of $925, yikes. Well, this is truly liquid gold, since there are pieces of actual edible gold in there. To find actual good olive oil, look no further than the bestoliveoils organisation that hands out yearly awards for the best olive oil in the world. Here are the winners of 2022
Origins
Olive tree cultivation and olive production has been a thing for a long time, according to artefacts and archaeological remains of ancient civilization. The olive has been an integral part of life specifically in the East of the Mediterranean. Archaeologists have found stone mortars and presses for olive oil extraction. Is unclear where the olive tree exactly originates from, some evidence points towards Persia and Mesopotamia and spread towards the Eastern Mediterranean region of Levant and Northern Africa.
Here you can see the map of the spread of olive trees by Syrian researchers
The olive tree grows slowly but has a very long life. The average lifespan of an olive tree is 300-400 years, but olive trees are also found at 3000 years old. For this reason, the name of the olive tree is the “immortal tree” in mythology and botany.
Olive Oil’s Golden Age
Olive oil entered its golden age with the Greeks, as they used it for food, fuel, skin lotion, contraceptive, detergent, preservative, pesticide, perfume and adornment. Yes, they even used it as a contraceptive measurement. To make an ancient birth control mixture proposed by Aristotle, women in Greece used olive and cedar oils to decrease sperm mobility. This would give them time to rinse or douche after having sex to reduce the chance of pregnancy.
Olive oil was also a valuable medicine in the hands of ancient Greek doctors. Hippocrates mentions 60 different conditions which could be treated with it, such as skin conditions, wounds and burns, gynaecological ailments, ear infections and many others. Hippocrates says in his book “Diet and Therapeutics”:
“The exercises in the dust and exercises with oil differ: The dust is cold, the oil is hot. In winter the oil more conducive to development, because the coldness prevents removed from the body. In summer the oil producing melts the flesh as it warms up due to age. The massaged with oil and water soothes the body and not let it get too hot.
When medicine was not enough to save the patient, olive oil was used in laying out the dead. Women washed the body and anointed it with olive oil or scented oils. Oil, wine, honey and other products were offered to the dead at the graveside. The Spartans buried their dead on a bed of olive twigs to protect their souls. The olive tree was also used to protect the living, with those who attended funerals wearing crowns of olive branches to guard themselves against evil.
Legend has it that Poseidon, the sea god, and Athena, goddess of wisdom, competed to find the gift that would be most valuable to humankind. Poseidon offered the horse and Athena the olive tree. Because of its many uses, the provision of heat, food, medicine and perfume, the olive tree was chosen as the most valuable and in return for Athena’s contribution, the most powerful city in Greece was named Athens in her honour.
The olive tree was a particularly important symbol for the ancient Greeks. It was connected to their diet and their religion, and was used as a decorative motif on vases, in gold jewellery and elsewhere. It was considered a symbol of peace, wisdom and victory. That is why the winners of the Olympic Games were crowned with a wreath of a wild olive tree.
Symbolism was even present in the harvest as olives were usually gathered by beating the tree with a rod, this was highly condemned:
Do not shake and beat your trees. Gathering by hand each year ensures a good harvest
Pliny The Elder
Thales’ Foresight
The olive became a symbol in the prediction of good harvests. One of the seven sages of Greece, Thales, predicted through a mathematical scheme using astronomy the year that harvest would be excellent in a particular period. He was a poor man and had no intention in becoming rich, but wanted to prove that you can become rich using knowledge and wisdom. With his prediction, he rented all the olive presses for his prediction period. The following year, after a very good harvest, Thales became immediately rich after controlling the olive presses price and proved to his citizens that he could easily be a good businessman if he would like to be so.
Olive Export
The Greeks found that fields with olive trees had a much greater return on investment than any other crop. It was also easy to store and kept well for long periods of time without care or attention. This was important considering the distances of its remote locations for trade and export markets. There is evidence that the Greeks traded its olive oil as for as the south of Italy, the east of Spain and into the Black Sea namely Crimea. The regions that Greek traded with had not cultivated the olive tree yet and were eager to use the liquid gold. There was even a stock exchange on the island of Delos that was set by the price standard of olive oil.
Po(i)litics
Greece was thriving because of it delicious and useful olive oil, but most importantly profitable. While Thales could predict the climate, it was much harder to predict the volatility of Greek politics. Wars and invasion were rampant and not only took a toll on the people but also on the countryside. When you realize that it takes 30 years before an olive grove produces quality olives, an invasion that swept the countryside was disastrous for the single crop or fruit where the whole country depended on. This happened frequently, where the invader would destroy the crops, or they were neglected by the fleeing farmers.
To strengthen Greece’s position in the economy and its large dependence on olive oil. Athenian lawmaker Solon’s came up with a set-up of reforms to unite the country in the production of it’s most valuable and important goods. In Solon’s law it says:
“He forbade the export of produce other than olive oil, minted new Athenian coinage on a more universal standard, reformed the standard of weights and measures, and granted immigrant craftsmen citizenship. Other civil laws regulated the water supply to farms and even the distance between beehives for honey production. To prevent shortages of food, he banned the export of all farm produce except olive oil.”
With these reforms, trade and export Greece became a major superpower in the Mediterranean region and olive oil continued to be an essential product of commerce even well into the times when Rome took over the world.
Van Gogh’s homage to olive trees
Everybody was captivated by the olive tree, even Van Gogh. But not by the juice of its fruits, but by its mere aesthetic. In 1889, he painted 15 works in the honour of the tree which nowadays are considered as some of his finest.
He wrote to his brother Theo van Gogh
“I am struggling to catch (the olive trees). They are old silver, sometimes with more blue in them, sometimes greenish, bronzed, fading white above a soil which is yellow, pink, violet tinted orange… very difficult. The rustle of the olive grove has something very secret in it, and ancient. It is too beautiful for us to dare to paint it or to be able to imagine it.”
Conclusion
There is so much history on olive trees and olive oil. That I cannot cover it all, but I hope I have done it justice, and I hope most of all that you are craving some olive oil at the moment. Well I certainly do, see you in the next edit!