By Bev Gruber
The Everyday Gourmet Traveler

Italians are known for their passion about many things – art, music, soccer; but especially about their culinary traditions. One of the products of which they are most proud is olive oil. Whichever region of Italy you visit - Liguria to the north, Tuscany  in the center, or Apulia in the south – proud residents proclaim their oil to be the finest produced anywhere.

Around November and December the olive oil harvest begins. Each region has its own tradition of how and when it’s best to harvest olives, what technique is utilized, how long the olive can wait and how the olives are pressed. An early harvest, such as is done in Tuscany, means that the olives are less ripe, which means that there is less oil produced from them. The early Tuscan harvest also produces an olive oil that is somewhat “biting” and peppery. Tuscans adore this new oil and it is always a cause for celebration.

The process is similar all over Italy, but the results are remarkably different from region to region – depending on the timing and blend of olives.

In Tuscany they are always hand-picked and more green. Tuscans do not feel that an olive that falls to the ground should be pressed for oil as it is deemed damaged and might possibly spoil the entire batch. In Liguria you will see orange netting under the olive trees, placed there to catch the olives that fall. In Puglia where the trees are very old and very large, machines are necessary to harvest olives. The olives in the south yield a greater volume of oil than those of Liguria or Tuscany. In fact, Puglia/Apulia is the leading producer of olive oil in all of Italy.

The process is similar throughout Italy: The farmer harvests his olives and puts them in cloth sacks to ensure circulation of air. He then takes them to the nearest “frantoio” for pressing. The fun part here is that the farmer and his family accompany the olives to the pressing. He has taken great care to harvest his olives at what he considers the best stage of ripeness and with the best harvesting techniques; so he wants to make certain that the olives pressed and oil produced are his. The entire family packs a lunch and goes to the frantoio at the appointed hour (reservations are required). Once there, their olives are weighed and placed in large basket-like containers. The family takes up the vigil in a nearby area – some frantoios have fireplaces for cooking, others have simple seating. Then the processing gets underway.

When it’s our farmer’s turn, his olives are inspected (bad or bruised olives are discarded) and then washed and put in a large bin. A conveyor belt carries them up to the crushing wheels – these are large granite wheels that look like whetstone wheels used for milling grain. In olden days these two wheels were turned by animals, but today they are mechanized. The wheels move in a giant circle crushing the olives, pits and all, and feed the pulp into an augur-type machine that produces a paste. This paste is then fed onto large woven metal mats that are stacked (by hand) one upon the other, until there are about 20 high.  This stack of olive paste is then moved to a hydraulic press that squeezes the oil out of the olives. After this squeezing the oil goes into a centrifuge where excess water is removed. The new oil then slowly begins to trickle out a spigot and ultimately into our farmer’s containers. At no time is there heat or chemicals used to extract the oil.

The family has been eagerly awaiting this moment and may celebrate by toasting some of the region’s famous bread, rubbing it with garlic and drizzling the fresh oil on top. They will then load up their oil and head for home.

It’s fascinating to see olive oil produced in all the regions and taste the differences in the end product. If you’re interested in seeing olive oil being pressed, you’ll have to visit Italy in November.

If you can’t visit Italy, I suggest locating a good Italian specialty food store, buying olive oils from several regions and doing your own comparative tasting. You’ll probably find oils from Umbria, Tuscany, Sicily, Lazio, and possibly Liguria. To do a comparative tasting, set a saucer in front of each bottle, pour a little oil into the plate in front, sprinkle with a pinch of salt (to bring out the flavor) and place the bottle behind the plate for identification. Have ready some cubed rustic white bread. Each person should dip one cube into an oil (one plate for each oil, taking care that the bottles are behind the correct saucer of oil) and taste each oil individually. There is no right or wrong, this is simply to decide which one suits you best, so you can choose olive oils more knowledgeably. This method isn’t quite as satisfying as tasting the oil in Italy, but it’s fun to do with friends anyway.

If you taste enough and begin educating your palate about the complexity of olive oils, you’ll begin to gain an appreciation for the passion that Italians have about this wonderful heritage food.