Last month, Nicholas Blechman, a contributor
for the New York Times, put out this infographic with the brilliantly alarming
title Extra Virgin Suicide: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil. Much of his
information was derived from the research and writing of Tom Mueller, as on his
blog Truth in Olive Oil and his book Extra Virginity: The Sublime and
Scandalous World of Olive Oil.
Against the pale green background
of the slide show Blechman created, stick figures act out a simplified verison
of the olive oil production process, highlighting the nefarious acts that take
place along the way from European farms to your local supermarket. I say European farms and not Italian because, as it turns out, though
the olive oil is labeled as “Italian Olive Oil,” often times the olives comes
from other countries, such as Spain. The olive oil is pressed elsewhere and
shipped to Italy, where it’s packaged as “Extra Virgin” and marked with “Imported
From Italy” stamps. This false advertising is only the first horror. Some
refineries have been mixing the olive oil with other cooking oils or worse yet,
merely adding chemicals to vegetable oil and passing it off at olive oil. Italy
has taken measures to resolve this crime of inauthenticity by deploying members
of the Italian Carabinieri (their police force) to examine the oil. This
process, however, is difficult because it relies on an acute sense of smell,
rather than laboratory tests.
For the Italians, the degradation
of olive oil and its recent bad press is damaging to an integral part of their
culinary heritage. Many Italians assert they’ve been doing their best to carry
on a proud tradition; the olive oil industry is suffering is a result of
globalization. Small batches of authentic Italian olive oil are being made, but
Italy cannot produce the quantity that the world population demands and thus,
the good name of Italian oil has been sullied to satisfy the greed of
outsiders. Nevertheless, the citizens of Italy are working to redeem the honor
of olive oil. Legislation is circulating within the European Union to rework
exportation laws so that bottles of olive oil must be labeled with the olives’
country of origin, rather than the place where the oil was packaged.
Why is this important to non-Italians?
Some people might not be bothered that the bottle they purchase may or may not
be olive oil, so long as it’s cheap, but this mentality is the downfall of our
society. We sometimes care more about the illusion than we do the
experience. In order to ensure that you’re getting a quality product, read
the labels. While some phrases are meant to deceive, concrete facts – names of
towns or farmers, best by dates, etc. – can help you determine what’s hiding
beneath the packaging.
No comments:
Post a Comment