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Day 4 - The Olive Oil Journey

Day 4 - The Olive Oil Journey

extravirginguy
October 31, 2022

Welcome to the blog. I'm traveling through Europe on a quest to find great Olive Oil.

Tell me about something not on your resume

I grew up loving Dark Chocolate, Pomegranates, Avocadoes, and Pistachios. There has been a running balance of Ghirardelli 72% Dark Chocolate in my family house since I was in middle school. I was my mom's enemy come September as Pomegranate juice on white cabinets turned into a regular occurrence. I'm convinced I was the first Egg / Cheese / Avocado lover before Avocadoes become trendy. After school, I would crush unsalted Pistachios all over the counter and though I'd clean it all up right after, if my mom came into the kitchen she and my dad spent an hour cleaning the night before…

Day 4 in Quesada, Andalusia, Spain: October 28th, 2022

Are you supposed to brush your teeth before eating breakfast?

I always do and rinse and clean the tongue (as taught by Dr. Katz in 5th grade) but the minty taste of my breakfast has forever bothered me. A very meh bread and Olio Nuovo to start the day.

First half of the day

Olive whacking mode activated.

One story I need to share from the morning

The olive shaker machine malfunctioned and a tiny amount of gas (few droplets) spilled on the olives today, which were properly removed from the collection. Yet it was probably the most real wow what the **** am I eating moment (outside of learning about factory farms in my 1st year at UVA Animal Ethics writing class) because I immediately realize this type of event could happen more often than expected in 10,000x bigger quantities than what I witnessed today, and that’s scary.

Think about everyone's role here. I feel like similar operations exist across many other agricultural products as well

Head farmer needs to make sure operation is fully in-tact, but is often away from the site of harvesting
The shaker's (laborer) job is to harvest as many olives as possible, given a finite set of parameters
Miller/crusher examines olives for temperature/color/visual defects and cleans them (rinses them off)

Oh yeah, and this is organic olive oil! Even if no pesticides are used, Olives may get in contact with fertilizer, gas, or really anything before hitting the mill. For this reason, I respect food brands that reveal their source. The transparency holds both the brand and source more accountable and partially justifies charging more than what you may typically be accustomed to in the supermarket.