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By, Nicky Makris
Greek Olive Oil can be found in many parts of the world, and once you try it you're hooked! Olive oil is used in cookin mainly, but we greeks use it on many other occasions:
Used in church when christenign a baby, the godfather spreads the oil over the baby's body.
At the funerals the priest pours olive oil all over the body in the shape of a cross.
In our houses we burn candles with olive oil.
Greek's consume 30 quarts of oil yearly, maybe more now becuase everyone recognizes the benefits of olive oil. Trees are not very big on most places, they are short with twisted trunks from old age. How we pick the olives:
We spread nets under the tree and we use stepladders and beat the branches with a cane or a stick. The olives fell on the net. We would clean the leaves and place the olives in socks. The sooner we take the olives to press, the better quality oil we extract. Now the oil presses are advanced mechanically, but I remember when they used to use steam to crush the olives to a paste with big stones going around a vat.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil:
The oil that comes out first is called "agourolado" or extra virgin. Agourolado means comes from unripe olives. The colour is cloudy yellow. Now they filter it to ensure clarity. Extra virgin is very low in acidity...0.1 or 0.2. To my knowledge this is the best olive oil.
Pure Olive Oil:
Olive oil with high acidity...4 or 5 and over is heated, procecessed in high temperatures with chemicals & it does not taste like olive oil. It is light yellow in colour. If you start using extra virgin olive oil instead of butter or margerine it will take a while to get used too...But your food will start to taste better...especially your salads!
In our house, every winter when we brought the first oil home from the press, Mom used to make Tiganopsomo and lagides. SHe used to make bread every Monday,, 11 big loaves for the entire family & she would mix the dough by hand...a very hard job.
The she woudl cut a piece of dough and form it into little flat pancakes, fry it in the pan until golden brown, then take it out and dip it in honey or petimezi (reduced grape juice...sweet and very tasty) |
