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Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

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Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#81

Post by zozbot123 »

Cyph0n wrote: post #78
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is olive oil- it's just not extra virgin olive oil, produced by olive flesh (i.e. not the seeds) and only by mechanical extraction (i.e. no heat or chemical processing). The fraud is in the fact that it is advertised as extra virgin, the highest recognised quality, when it's not. Also, it is Italian, only not purely so. It is often mixed in with oils from other places. The problem is when the mix-ins are from Nort…

> The problem is when the mix-ins are from North Africa, e.g. from Morocco, which are considered of inferior quality Tunisian here. I'm curious: why is North African olive oil considered inferior?

Racism, mainly. They say the same thing about Turkish hazelnuts while failing to acknowledge that Turkey is the homeland of hazelnuts and way way older than Italian ones.

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#82

Post by [deleted] »

Cyph0n wrote: post #78
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is olive oil- it's just not extra virgin olive oil, produced by olive flesh (i.e. not the seeds) and only by mechanical extraction (i.e. no heat or chemical processing). The fraud is in the fact that it is advertised as extra virgin, the highest recognised quality, when it's not. Also, it is Italian, only not purely so. It is often mixed in with oils from other places. The problem is when the mix-ins are from Nort…

> The problem is when the mix-ins are from North Africa, e.g. from Morocco, which are considered of inferior quality Tunisian here. I'm curious: why is North African olive oil considered inferior?

[deleted]

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#83

Post by pingec »

vanderZwan wrote: post #53

People outside of Italy are probably not aware of how seriously they take the topic of olive oil over there. The label "extra vergine" increases the price so much that there is a huge economic incentive for fraud. To combat this they have a taste police (literally) that checks that olive oil samples are not secretly mixes of fresh and old oil together. They are... quite opinionated, as you can see this exchange from…

I'm also picky about olive oil. I've heard about countless scams in Italy about fake olive oil on TV. Also to me most commercial olive oils from the South (Italy, Greece, Spain) taste quite mild/soft compared to our olive oil from "Istrska Belica" / "Bianchera" variety.

We make our own olive oil, it is not a commercial endeavour so quality is first above everything else even though this variety is a PITA to grow. It is difficult to prune, more susceptible to various fungal diseases, has a tendency to produce on alternating years but the flavor makes up for those troubles.

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#84

Post by josario »

I'm Italian and I come from Puglia. It strikes me directly. It's a hard punch in the stomach, problem is that people don't want to remove this old trees, they are even centuries old and so they make the disease spread more and more as time progress and as a matter of fact the olive oil selling is their only income. The state failed, they had no direct order to remove the trees nor economical help. As an example in my father field where we grow olive oil trees, there are few that has this disease, but my father hasn't removed them, it's a cost we can't afford. Now put a lot of ignorant agriculturist old men without money that have has the only source of income selling olive oil in front of this disease and you get the results.

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#85

Post by hinkley »

vanderZwan wrote: post #53

People outside of Italy are probably not aware of how seriously they take the topic of olive oil over there. The label "extra vergine" increases the price so much that there is a huge economic incentive for fraud. To combat this they have a taste police (literally) that checks that olive oil samples are not secretly mixes of fresh and old oil together. They are... quite opinionated, as you can see this exchange from…

The French use regionalism with wine to control this without sounding... well let’s just say it: racist.

I’m surprised there aren’t appellations for Italian olive oil, if they care so much about it being domestic.

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#86

Post by ams6110 »

cataphract wrote: post #69
commentor10 wrote: post #66

Is it time to hoard good olive oil?

Olive oil is a fresh product that needs to be consumed within a relatively short time span (preferably within a year or so) — after that it starts getting rancid. So this is not really an option.

What if you keep it frozen?

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#87

Post by dragonwriter »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #28
mlrtime wrote: post #18

I was pretty shocked to learn that most (~80%) of the Italian extra virgin olive oil that comes into the US is neither Italian or olive oil. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-overtime-how-to-buy-...

It is olive oil- it's just not extra virgin olive oil, produced by olive flesh (i.e. not the seeds) and only by mechanical extraction (i.e. no heat or chemical processing). The fraud is in the fact that it is advertised as extra virgin, the highest recognised quality, when it's not. Also, it is Italian, only not purely so. It is often mixed in with oils from other places. The problem is when the mix-ins are from Nort…

> It is olive oil

Some of it is, some of it isn't; as the article notes, while some of the fraud is lower-grade olive oil, some of it is non-olive seed oils with additives to help it pass for olive oil.

> The problem is when the mix-ins are from North Africa, e.g. from Morocco, which are considered of inferior quality

No, the problem is that the mixins are lower-grade oil (not extra-virgin). While, yes, this oil often comes from North Africa, the origin isn't really the problem, the grade is.

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#88

Post by gnulinux »

vanderZwan wrote: post #53

People outside of Italy are probably not aware of how seriously they take the topic of olive oil over there. The label "extra vergine" increases the price so much that there is a huge economic incentive for fraud. To combat this they have a taste police (literally) that checks that olive oil samples are not secretly mixes of fresh and old oil together. They are... quite opinionated, as you can see this exchange from…

I personally always found Tunisian or Turkish olive oil the best, or Greek as a replacement.

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#89

Post by dragonwriter »

jimmy1 wrote: post #50
mlrtime wrote: post #18

I was pretty shocked to learn that most (~80%) of the Italian extra virgin olive oil that comes into the US is neither Italian or olive oil. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-overtime-how-to-buy-...

Which is why you should purchase Extra Virgin Olive oil from Greece, directly from Greece. There is a greek food importer in almost every that has a few Greek restaurant owners where you could go and get the real stuff. Also the irony here is that for the "premium" Italian olive oils, especially the extra virgin, most of the olives come from Greece.

> Which is why you should purchase Extra Virgin Olive oil from Greece, directly from Greece.

I think you misspelled “California”.

> Also the irony here is that for the "premium" Italian olive oils, especially the extra virgin, most of the olives come from Greece.

I thought Spain supplied more of the olives for Italian olive oil, and that was true across grades.

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#90

Post by dragonwriter »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #36
endorphone wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article certainly doesn't say that 80% isn't olive oil. Instead it argues that up to 80% doesn't meet the very stringent requirement to be classified as extra-virgin olive oil, often because it's partially mixing with lesser grades (or even simply differently sourced) of olive oil. That's a far cry from wholly substituting.

You are still selling an inferior product, claiming that is something it is not. In Italy or Spain, you can find "non extra-virgin" olive oil sold as well, although at a lower price.

> In Italy or Spain, you can find "non extra-virgin" olive oil sold as well

Also in the US, you can find both virgin olive oil and (no modifier) olive oil as well as extra-virgin (and while EVOO is a higher grade, its only better for a narrow range of applications.)

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