Illustration for Ask Chef Tony by Athena Chuang ©2014
Well, you can knock me down,
Step on my face,
Slander my name
All over the place.
Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh,
Honey, lay off of my shoes
Don’t you step on my blue suede shoes.
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes.
– from Elvis Presley’s “Blue Suede Shoes” (words by Carl Perkins)
Take a good look at the sentiment expressed above by Mr. Presley… well, that is pretty close to how I feel about my olive oil. You can do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh, lay off of my olive oil… baby.
It does seem, however, that someone is stepping on my blue suede shoes.
Have a look at this smartly illustrated explanation of what is going on with olive oil, created by Nicholas Blechman for the New York Times.
Olive oil. Well, a seemingly simple topic, it might seem, at first. But really, not. Olive oil is so central to food and cooking – to my cooking, to Italian and Mediterranean cooking, that I could spend days talking about it. Long books can, and have been, written about it. Confession: I actually started writing this post a week ago, but each time I would find a place to start digging into the topic, it was not long before the beast got too complex and too big, and I would lose my grip on the subject, and have to start all over again. I repeated this process several times, and now I know how Sisyphus felt. So let’s not even attempt to serve the whole story here, or to try to swallow it up as one single topic. This will just be the first of who knows how many ongoing posts about this beautiful green oleaginous liquid. Whenever I find something relevant to bring up regarding olive oil, I’ll make a new post.
So the illustrated article linked above does most of the work for me in today’s post. It explains very well that unfortunately, there is (and has been for a while) trouble in the world of olive oil. I wish it were an uncomplicated matter and when you pick up a bottle in the market and it says “extra virgin olive oil” then you know you are going home with a bottle of exactly that. But of course, it not so easy. But really for us, it boils down to a practical question. Let’s accept for now the fact that there is really nothing we can do about the shady world of olive oil being what it is. The only thing that really matters to you, reader, is – “How can I make sure that what I’m buying is pure quality olive oil?” You won’t like the answer. I wish it could be something like “You put a drop of vinegar in it and if it turns purple, it’s the real stuff.” Maybe someday someone will come up with something like that, but for now, the only answer that you can trust is that you have to really really know olive oil well. The tastes, the texture, the smells. And that is a very big task. Olive oil has as much nuance and sophistication as wine, so it’s not something you learn quickly.
But, yes, I know – you have a dinner to prepare tonight, and you don’t have 10 years to become a sommelier of olive oil right now. So for today, let’s just get down and dirty… the best practical advice I can dispense, is to rely mostly by understanding brand and scale. If you find a small label with small scale and limited product supply, it’s more likely to be a good source. It will be expensive though. But they are consistent and likely get their olives from a single reliable source. You can probably trust larger scale brands such as Colavita or Bertolli, but they distribute all over the world, so they mix olives from different sources in order to meet the demand, and the formula will change depending on factors. But if you see oil from a brand you’re not familiar with, and it’s only $9 for a half gallon… stay clear. There is no way anyone can sell real olive oil so cheaply. And be wary of tricky labeling, such as “light”, “extra light”, etc. Many of the terms are just marketing and are either useless or misleading in determining quality. We will tackle the issue of olive oil grades (extra virgin, virgin, etc ) another day soon, but remember those are the terms that do matter. You can also put some trust in high quality markets with great reputations, such as here we have Stew Leonard’s, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Fairways, and such. They usually are able to source it themselves and on a smaller scale. Farmer’s markets also usually keep strict standards for the vendors, so I would take a look there as well. Again, probably very expensive, but likely good quality stuff.
The last piece of advice for this post is to use your olive oil according to its quality. I keep my standard olive oil around for my light frying or sauté needs, but the stuff that I spent a small fortune on at a specialty market, I only use as a finishing oil. The cooking process would destroy much of the delicate flavor that makes that olive oil special, so, just keep that in mind. Don’t be using your bottle of vintage Chateau Latour as cooking wine, is what I’m saying.
So that’s enough to chew on for now. But I love olive oil as a topic, so we will revisit from time to time and I will try to pass on what I can, so that if you follow my blog here, you will one day know a lot more about olive oils than you did today. And I’m posting a link to our very first YouTube video, which was, surprise, about olive oil. I’m aware we probably need to make a new updated video to keep up with the world of counterfeit and adulterated olive oil, now that it has become more sophisticated and widespread. But for now it’s a good place to start.
Stay tuned,
Chef Tony Scarpati
askcheftony 