All About Olive Oil
As of October 18th, your favorite imported culinary goodies are going up by 25% thanks to tariffs levied against the EU in retaliation for illegal subsidies given to the airplane manufacturer, Airbus. As usual, it’s the farmers, small businesses, and customers getting stiffed which ultimately leads to less sales and higher food costs.While there are plenty of locally produced products that can go head-to-head with their European counterparts—think artisan cheeses, charcuterie and wine—there is one item that folks seem to forget is growing in domestic production right here in the US (although not locally due to obvious reasons)—and that is olive oil.Despite being an ardent supporter of eating locally, I cannot do without olive oil. No one dresses their salad with butter, lard or tallow.When the Spanish padres began establishing the 21 religious missions along the coast of California beginning in 1769, they brought with them olive trees. The oldest olive trees in America are found on the grounds of these missions. Native to the Mediterranean, olives flourish on the west coast and have been cultivated as a crop for both fruits and oil. Similarly, olive groves thrive in states with similar climates like Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Hawaii.While Old World olive oil production holds a lure of romanticism (market chef Jonathan Bardzik is currently vacationing in Spain for the olive harvest), since 1997 there have been numerous scandals involving fraudulent imports. In 2007, an expose’ in the New Yorker found that only 40% of Italian olive oil was unadulterated. UC Davis found that 69% of EVOO sold in grocery stores fails to qualify as EVOO.As with other goods not native to the Central Farmers Markets foodshed, such as coffee, chocolate and tea, patrons have access to guaranteed quality with estate and single-source products when it comes to olive oil thanks to Lynn and Keith Voight at All Things Olive. The Voights put me in touch with two award-winning olive producers to learn how olives are grown, harvested and processed.Total ControlJeff Martin, owner, grower, and miller at Frantoio Grove in Gilroy, California walked me through the basics of his single-source extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) production and why it matters. Similar to wine, this type of EVOO is often referred to as “estate”, but Martin though that sounded too pretentious. “Most of the estate grown olive oil from Europe never makes it to the United States,” he pointed out. Additionally, other factors including ripeness, temperature, light, and oxygen exposure can significantly impact the quality of the end product.“The only way I can make the best possible product is to have 100% control from start to finish,” explained Martin. Currently, he is preparing for this year’s harvest which he hopes will kick off November 1st. I asked him how to tell when the fruits are ripe enough to harvest.“Intuition.” Actually, it’s a good part of traveling to olive groves and mills, talking to other growers, tasting and learning, much like any other agrarian endeavor.
The fruits—olives—vary in color from green which offer the vegetative, grassy flavors to the riper purple colors delivering the tropical notes. The art is learning how to blend green and purple olives to achieve the desired qualities.
Martin harvests 3,500 trees by hand, raking the fruit on to ground nets which are gathered up and emptied into bins to be taken to the mill. Communal mills are common throughout Europe where families take their olives, but the fruits can sit for up to a week and everyone’s olives are milled together with each receiving final product in relation to the amount of raw fruits brought to the mill.
For his beginning harvests, Martin similarly outsourced his milling, but chose to install his own mill onsite to process his olives the same day they are picked. In addition to freshness, he takes extra measures to ensure his fruits are clear of dust and leaves before entering a stainless-steel hammer mill for grinding. Once ground, the next step is malaxation where the ground material is mixed into a paste-like batter coaxing smaller droplets of oil into larger droplets—a sort of reverse homogenization. The paste is next is pumped through a centrifuge which separates the oil from the remaining materials of juice, pits and pulp. The oil passes through a vertical centrifuge to remove more solids and water. Finally, Martin’s oil passes through a paper filter.
“I could rack off the particles which could take months, but by getting the oil clean enough on the first day means a longer shelf life—as much as two years—for the oil.” He explained that olive oil begins to degrade from the moment the fruit is picked so timely processing and less contact with the solids after milling impacts the quality of the end product.From his trees, Martin can produce one hundred tons of olives. That translates into 3,000 gallons of EVOO. While you may be thinking WOW and calculating a rough estimate of gross income, consider this: there was no harvest in 2018 due to an unseasonal warm spell in February that caused the trees to flower only to be followed by a freeze in March destroying the blossoms. Sound familiar? As I like to say, agriculture is the world’s oldest form of legalized gambling. Sometimes we lose.Buyer Beware“There’s a lot of fake olive oil out there,” warns Karen Bond, owner, grower and miller of Bondolio in Winters, California and the Past President of the California Olive Oil Council (COOC). Currently, the COOC sets the most rigorous standards for EVOO in the world. In order to carry the COOC EVOO seal, a producer must mill their fruit under 82 degrees Fahrenheit (formerly known as cold-pressed), undergo a chemical analysis by an accredited laboratory and finally, pass the COOC’s rigorous sensory analysis taste panel certified by the American Oil Chemists Society.Although only 7% of all the EVOO sold in the United States is produced domestically, mostly in California, that number is growing as almond, walnut and citrus growers move away from water-intensive crops. “Olive trees are drought-resistant,” said Bond giving me a brief history lesson of the origin of olive trees and the different cultivars that grow throughout the Middle East and Europe.“I love to look at people’s faces when they try fresh olive oil for the first time,” exclaimed Bond. I know exactly how she feels having witnessed that scenario repeatedly throughout the years at the farmers market watching customers trying fresh, local foods grown by farmers who, like Martin and Bond, go the extra mile to produce a true quality product that ignites the eater’s senses.Olio NouveauSeasonality is king when it comes to the farmers market. Excitement always builds in anticipation of the first, ripe fruits. As the olive harvest commences, one of the most anticipated items from one of Central Farm Markets’ original vendors, All Things Olive, is the new oil. Lynn Voight likened it’s following to Beaujolais Nouveau in wine. “It’s unfiltered, there’s particulate matter floating around, it has a vibrant, bold flavor, and people look forward to its arrival at the market every year. It’s a special treat.”Coming in December, there will be four varieties from four different producers, including Frantoio Grove, Bondolio and Seka Hills, which are sustainably managed groves operated by the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation in northern California’s Capay Valley. Keep an eye out for it, because like all seasonal and delicious things at market, it will be here and gone before you know it!