I had heard of the Mediterranean omnipresence of Olive oil, but as with many of Johnny-foreigner’s little foibles, one rather has to see it to believe it. Although well acquainted with this penthouse-dweller of the food pyramid, I was surprised at both the quantities involved and the variety of its uses. Indeed I couldn’t hold back an air of polite surprise when, early on in my stay, at a family supper, Papá proceeded to pour what I would have considered to be a weekly recommended allowance of olive oil onto my plate of pasta. “We have olive oil on everything here!” he boomed, emptying the bottle on his plate. I had just been introduced to aceite de oliva, a staple of the Spanish diet.
Olive oil has been a part of mediterreanean life for about as long as anyone can remember. Homer has been caught waxing lyrical about the merits of this “Liquid Gold”, and as any fule kno, many an ancient athlete would smear up before his chariot race or cross-channel swim. It is unclear to me which came first: the ridiculous number of olive tree plantations or the equally preposterous number of uses for olive oil. The fact remains that olive oil has fuelled lamps, athletes and mediterreanean economies for millennia, and that trend only seems set to continue if my pasta is any indicator.
Living up to its reputation as the butter of the south, similar uses are extracted from olive oil in Spain. Any frying is done with the food fizzing in a pool of oil. It is also used in cake mixtures. A typical Spaniard will complete his frugal breakfast with a golden piece of toast, topped off with brown sugar and olive oil. It can be spread like butter on a baguette, if one is in search of a quick bread-based snack. Olive oil is present in any tin of absolutely anything. And as you will have guessed, the composition of Spanish salad dressing is not complicated. Apart from these more common uses, I have noted more than one olive-oil flavoured ice cream… With so much of the oil being consumed in one way or another, large stores are kept in a cupboard: 5-litre bottles of olive oil, now there’s something you might struggle to find in Tesco’s/Carrefour.
Not that I am complaining of this olive oil profusion. Quite apart from filling in my picture of the Spanish way of life, and providing me with a blog post, olive oil is extremely healthy. According to this possibly biased website, consumption of olive oil helps prevent heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, high blood pressure, arthritis, gallstones and, in a final flourish that sends all these claims flying in an explosion of implausibility, the common cold.
Hi Felix! I am so loving this blog!
I used to wonder whether we consumed too much olive oil, as it’s the only kind of oil we buy. But now I have my answer…. Olive oil on toast with brown sugar is not a delicacy that has ever occurred to me, and probably not one I will rush to introduce.
Olive oil was also misguidedly pressed into use as a sun tanning agent in the Dublin of my youth, a fact which might explain why Molly Malone was known as much for her peculiarly sallow complexion as for that plaintive refrain.