Italian Cuisine...A fine art.
Fans of Italian cuisine embrace the many nuances of olive oil.
Karen Fernau
The Arizona Republic
March 8, 2006
Restaurateur Tomaso Maggiore detects the fruity, grassy or peppery undertones of an olive oil by pouring a dab on his hands.
Then he rubs and rubs until the oil releases its telltale aroma.
"You go to olive oil mart in Italy and all the buyers are rubbing their hands together, smelling the oils. The smell is the first clue to an oil's flavor," says Maggiore.
The chef, who opened his first restaurant nearly 20 years ago, rubs the oil from olives he harvests and presses from his 600-tree orchard in his native Italy.
Maggiore, who operates restaurants in Phoenix and Chandler, Ariz., began cooking with and selling his private Luxus label at his restaurants in January. He joins an impressive list of connoisseurs feeding America's newfound passion for the Mediterranean's signature oil.
Americans consume about 454 million pounds of olive oil, more than twice as much as 10 years ago, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The rise in olive oil's popularity can be attributed to two primary reasons: our love affair with Italian food and a desire to eat more healthfully.
Americans are like teenagers in love when it comes to Italian food, adoring everything from pappardelle, rustically tossed with lamb sausage, broccoli and shaved Parmigiano, to caprese salads. Italian ranks as the top ethnic food in the United States.
"If you love Italian food, you must love olive oil. Olive oil is Italian food," Maggiore says.
In addition to its culinary accolades, olive oil acts as a tonic to cardiovascular health. This prized oil is high in antioxidants and other heart-healthy ingredients, such as monounsaturated fatty acids. Along with offering protection against heart disease by controlling levels of "bad" cholesterol levels, olive oil works as an anti-inflammatory and has clot-preventing powers, some studies suggest.
Not surprising, the rising popularity of olive oil has led to a record selection, from $6 bottles made from a blend of olives to $100 estate-bottled oil, in which olives are grown and processed into oil, which is then bottled on the same property.
Today, olive cultivation is global, from Italy and Croatia to Africa and America. California leads this country's olive oil revolution.
Perry Rea, a former auto-parts executive, turned his passion for olive oil into a business in 1988 by planting 1,000 olive trees at his Queen Creek Olive Mill, east of Gilbert, Ariz. After eight years of trial and error, Rea annually is producing about 1,500 gallons of olive oil, made from a blend of Pendelino, Lucca, Frantoio and Mission olives.
Like wine grapes, olives respond strongly to different climates, soils and cultivation and harvesting methods. For example, Rea's olive oil is known for its grassy smell and peppery finish.
In many ways, olive oil producers are like winemakers.
"We are master blenders who must select the right variety of olives, the right harvest time and all the other factors that make a quality olive oil," Rea says. "We do with olives what winemakers do with grapes."
Although best known as an ingredient in Mediterranean foods, olive oil can be used in place of butter and other cooking oils in most dishes, from potatoes to carrot cake.
"I can't think of any food that olive oil would not make taste better and be healthier," Maggiore says, "except maybe coffee."
Copyright 2005 The Arizona Republic.
|
