Changing Tastes: Olive Oil
Published November 13, 2007 by Rachel Laudan
In the late eighteenth-century “a taste for low-acidity olive oil became a mark of the affluent Mediterranean bourgeoisie” according to Massimo Mazzotti in “Enlightened Mills: Mechanizing Olive Oil Production in Mediterre¡anean Europe,” Technology and Culture (1994). The pungent flavor of traditional olive oil pleased the poor but was not for “delicate tables.”
It’s always interesting to see when and why tastes change. Mazzotti puts this change down to the desire of reforming government administrators and entrepreneurs in southern Europe to bring the region up to date economically and technologically. The production of olive oil was the most important commercial activity in the region because it was the best industrial lubricant and the most efficient oil or fat for lighting. High quality, low acidity oil sold for up to twice the price of common oil. Ergo, better machinery and a more efficient organization of labor would increase production and profit.
So the poor could no longer afford oil (something similar happened in the late twentieth century when the Olive Oil Council succeeded in persuading Americans and northern Europeans to glom on to olive oil as part of the Mediterranean Diet. Many around the Mediterranean went over to sunflower oil). The wealthy were convinced that low-acidity oil was healthier and tasted better–and of course it was more expensive so hence more prestigious (again the parallels with recent times when artisanal oils surged as better tasting, healthier and more expensive).
Filed under Food History, Grinding
Posts
Rachel, This is partly to see if your site is working. But also to comment that the turn in olive oil fate is really fascinating. I’m writing a little talk about Cato the Elder, writing during the comparable 2nd century BC investment boom in luxury olive oil, and he has extensive comments about crushing mills, presses, etc. and typical comments about getting olives crushed as quickly as possible. But surprisingly he prefers oil from ripe black olives. Does anyone do that anymore?
Ken, It’s working but has to be moderated.
Does anyone use ripe black olives anymore? No idea. But this article suggests that olives were stored to ferment before pressing through the late eighteenth century.
Depends what Cato means by “black” I guess, but as a generalisation the riper the olive the higher the acid content, the modern premium market is about low acid oils. The riper the olive the higher the oil yield, so riper more acidic olive oils produced for high volume market. I wonder if Cato et al used the oil in quite the same way? Would a high acid oil work better with the sweet/sour/salt flavour profile of his food then low acid/ peppery/grassy oils? Also do high acid oils store better?
I have noticed that there has been a bit talk against the tread for very grassy, peppery, green “Tuscan”" style oils (made from unripe grapes) which are popular. I wonder if a new trend will be for fruity, golden oils produced from riper olives?
Adam, thanks for putting me right about modern oil being low acid.
Ken, Mazzotti says that many traditional producers liked to leave the olives on the tree to ripen because it was easier and hence cheaper to harvest them than to pick off olives that were less ripe. This brings to mind some Greek vase painting, I think, with people beating the branches.
He also says that traditional mills had large storage areas where the olives were fermented for weeks or even months in the belief that this produced more oil.
High acid oils do not store as well apparently and are less transparent (and less good as lubricants).
Can one get high acid oil from ripe olives any more?