Column: olive oil from Italy

If there's one thing they know about in Italy, it's about olives. From pressing olives to the bottle or carafe for the olive oil. The way we in the Netherlands talk about the weather and think we know everything about it, like they talk about their national drink in Scotland, Italians are busy with that olive oil. So often and with tall tales that they even think they can taste the difference between oil from the north or Tuscany. Like Scots taste whether the whiskey comes from the Highlands or from the coast.

Ancient olive trees

Good olives grow on ancient olive trees. As an Italian proudly said recently at a new patch of olive grove: 'Those trees are at least a thousand years old!'

Olive trees that are strong and can withstand any weather if they are on the right soil, get enough water, lime, lots of sun and so on. At least, if it doesn't get too cold. Below minus 6 the olives could freeze. But before it gets that cold… And just like the flower bulbs in our country, those olives should not be fully grown. Get off the trees in time and then to the press.

But how do you get the small, marble-sized fruits from a tree when you have to do thousands per tree? And it takes dozens of trees to squeeze a single liter?

children's work

That is (childishly) simple. During the autumn holidays you lay huge nets under the trees and then the youth has a week off from school. Don't pick flower bulbs in early summer, but beat olives from the trees in the fall. With long sticks. Then the nets closed and everything on the cart.

The olive processing often continues as the milk was processed in the Netherlands in the old days. In factories or factories owned by a cooperative. The farmers in the area 'just' put a few males who are no longer suitable as farmers or who were too old to the press.

When the olives come in, it is noted from whom, how much and from where. And however they do it, the idea remains that every oil farmer gets the oil from their own orchard. Pressed separately and put separately in the storage tanks. Then every orchard owner can bottle and sell his own oil.

Of course we do know that the large (farmer) producers hand in the oil in a large factory and that factory oil is made there. Of course we understand that a lot of oil in our country comes from North Africa. But the real one comes from Italy, of course. From that small producer.

Tip: olive oil press in Montecatini Alto

Oil producers have whole stories about the first pressing, the cold pressing, fermentation and whatnot. They chat, if necessary, a whole meal full of olives and oil. And that's saying something in Italy, because food takes forever. Or at least an hour and a half.

Olive oil is a product that you cannot ignore in Italy. However, we are not writing a manual on how to treat oil here. What is nice is to take a look at the production in such a cooperative set-up. If you're already spending your holiday in Tuscany, drive to the most charming town of Montecatini. Don't stay down, but take the funicular to Alto. Or just go up the mountain by car.

At the top you turn left for a while and then suddenly there is such a beautiful old cooperative olive oil press on the right. To view. From olive to bottle. With explanation, food and drink. Nice! And it only costs what you want to pay for it yourself….

Of course you will go home with a few bottles of real farm olive oil. No factory material, no olives from Morocco that have been waiting for weeks on the quay for the press, but pure olive oil. Healthy and fair.

Also use it at home. Healthy? Oh, no healthier than oil from rapeseed or groundnut oil. But pain-resistant. With the same ingredients as many drugstore 'pain candies'. And very tasty, of course.

Clinking bottles in the car. When we go to Italy, nowadays more bottles of oil come home than bottles of wine end up in the car… So don't brake too hard.

Photo olives: Pixabay