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TheNewMexican

TheNewMexican

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So....... We have happily been using a California brand lite olive oil for the past number of years for general cooking, marinades, salads, etc. Sadly, when my wife went to purchase this past week, it has turned into a blend including two other countries in South America. We were originally prompted to switch to California based olive oil due to the questionable product coming out of Europe. Plus, the brand we chose was organic at the time. No longer seems to be the case.

Any suggestions on an either organic or very pure olive oil to switch to? Doesn't necessarily have to be California olive oil, but shouldn't have a bunch of garbage added either.

Thanks!
 
Firstly, go with extra virgin (EVOO). It is olive oil at its best. Organic doesnt necessarily equal good. Find an orchard that you respect, or a brand you like, and go from there. Also, if youre buying european evoo, go with spanish. most other euro evoo's are from spain and either branded or worse as their own. The only exception you might find to this is when youre buying from smaller markets. Californ ian is good olive oil generally, Talcott makes solid all-around stuff. It is typically lighter in flavor. I would say go for really good spanish evoo, or what is most local to you. Also look into different oils for different uses, i.e. in spanish culture there are 3 kinds: one for frying, one for multipurpose use like salads or alioili, etc. and one for bread/garnish. They tend to vary in concentration, flavor, and how you use them.
 
what is "questionable" about european olive oil? all i know is that in italy i think they diluted it with non italian olive oil. and got caught.

i try to always buy greek olive oil since the greeks have a several 1000 year old history with olives, so they should know their olives. if available i try to get oil from the kalamata region.
 
inferno said:
what is "questionable" about european olive oil? all i know is that in italy i think they diluted it with non italian olive oil. and got caught.

i try to always buy greek olive oil since the greeks have a several 1000 year old history with olives, so they should know their olives. if available i try to get oil from the kalamata region.
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Spanish olive oil is typically sold to italy or greece, etc. where it is then re-branded and sold to Americans at the market where they are more likely to buy from Italian or Greek brands as youve stated above. If the Spanish didnt do this, olive oil wouldnt make any money. And in Italy and Greece, mass-producing their own olive oil hasnt been as successful either . This is how it has been for the last decades or so. The market is changing where Americans and other countries are more educated on their food stuff, and now smaller companies can sell to those markets, but it is still difficult. What youll see most typically in spain, italy, and as been more recently adopted in cali, is wine vineyards producing olive oil so it is easier to sustain business-wise.
 
from what i find on wikipedia:
Kalamata olives in the European Union are protected with PDO status.[3] Olives of the same variety grown elsewhere are marketed as Kalamon olives.

(pdo=Three European Union schemes of geographical indications and traditional specialties, known as protected designation of origin (PDO), protected geographical indication (PGI), and traditional specialities guaranteed (TSG)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalamata_olive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geogr...raditional_specialities_in_the_European_Union

fairly certain the kalamata oil i buy in scandinavia is real kalamata oil. only things coming out of kalamata is weed and olives. thats what they do.
 
Thank you all for your good replies and taking the time to educate me.

Not trying to start any controversy, what originally got us into California olive oil was a number of news stories indicating that the Italian mafia had gotten hold of the olive oil business and cut it with everything from low grade to industrial chemicals. Yuck.....

Will look into Spain, EVOO and Kalamata.
 
Olive oil like all businesses is about money. Now they have to blend or get the highest yield possible. To test olive oil put it in the refrigerator if it solidifies it is blend or has other additives. It doesn’t matter if it is from Italy Greece Spain California Texas. Stick to one brand. For frying you can use pomace which is blend and withstand high temperature. For salads use evo first press. For dips also.
 
Another vote for partanna. Great all around olive oil
 
inferno said:
i try to always buy greek olive oil since the greeks have a several 1000 year old history with olives, so they should know their olives. if available i try to get oil from the kalamata region.
Click to expand...

I don't buy anything other than Kalamata EVOO and haven't for decades. Spanish olives just plain suck tastewise compared to Greek olives, and Kalamata olives are the creme de la creme when it comes to Greek olives.
 
I had an Italian woman tell me they call olive oil “oil” in Italy :)

I buy small batch stuff from local growers. And honestly, I buy the EVOO from Costco for general use.
 
I also use the cheap stuff from Costco, but it's listed as EVOO. Not sure if it's Kirkland or another, I cant recall off the top of my head.

But for high quality Californian Olive oil, the best is Jackrabbit and Chacewater Wine and Oil Mill.
 
For americans its probably excusable to think 'olive oil' is one product, thats a far ways from the truth. It has always been very regional in production/quality etc. making Try eating some olives sometime and think about this...would you ever confuse picholine with kalamata?
 
I don't know if you can get hold of Portuguese olive oil. We have really great quality olive oil, but I have no idea if it is readily available in the US.

As ate mentioned, there are different kinds of olive oil for different uses... Go extra virgin if you wanna use it raw, as in salad dressings, as it has higher degree of purity, lower acidity, and tastes way better. The biggest draw back is it's lower resistance to heat. So, for cooking go with virgin olive oil.
 
Cbt said:
As ate mentioned, there are different kinds of olive oil for different uses... Go extra virgin if you wanna use it raw, as in salad dressings, as it has higher degree of purity, lower acidity, and tastes way better. The biggest draw back is it's lower resistance to heat. So, for cooking go with virgin olive oil.
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Extra virgin does not have a higher level of purity than virgin - extra virgin is not refined whereas virgin is refined to remove solids, which is precisely why virgin has a higher smoke point than extra virgin. In exactly the same way why clarified butter (ghee) has a much higher smoke point than normal butter - clarification = removing the solids.
 
That's interesting about the different smoke points between Extra Virgin and Virgin. I can get by with using just Extra Virgin in our home kitchen because I always use it for fairly low-temp cooking like sweating garlic and onions, or sous vide marinade. So it never gets near the smoke point. I use peanut oil for any of the high-temp stuff like searing steaks. That way I only have to get one type of olive oil.

I've just been getting the supermarket EVOO stuff like Bertolli because we hardly ever use it as salad dressing or other things where subtle difference in taste would matter. Maybe I should try a fancier one though. Maybe I'd use it for more things.
 
I don't use oil at all when frying steaks, I simply make sure that I buy steaks that have some fat on them :)

EVOO will definitely taste better than virgin, precisely because of the solids - in the same way butter will taste better than ghee. Bertolli is totally mass market stuff, coming from green olives. Kalamata are purple and taste something like 28 times better in my unscientific opinion :) Seek out the Kalamata EVOO - it's not that much more expensive than the Bertolli (at least not here in Finland).
 
podzap said:
I don't use oil at all when frying steaks, I simply make sure that I buy steaks that have some fat on them :)

EVOO will definitely taste better than virgin, precisely because of the solids - in the same way butter will taste better than ghee. Bertolli is totally mass market stuff, coming from green olives. Kalamata are purple and taste something like 28 times better in my unscientific opinion :) Seek out the Kalamata EVOO - it's not that much more expensive than the Bertolli (at least not here in Finland).
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I've been curious about this in the past, so I've tasted comparisons of regular melted butter and ghee side by side. Then for kicks, I tasted what was being removed from the ghee (the mostly protein solids).

I get a more unctuous, deep, rich flavor from the ghee. The protein solids from the melted butter tastes much like the tangy flavors in plain, full-fat yogurt. If it weren't for the grainy texture of the solids on their own, it would be hard to discern them from yogurt either.
 
Chips said:
I've been curious about this in the past, so I've tasted comparisons of regular melted butter and ghee side by side. Then for kicks, I tasted what was being removed from the ghee (the mostly protein solids).

I get a more unctuous, deep, rich flavor from the ghee. The protein solids from the melted butter tastes much like the tangy flavors in plain, full-fat yogurt. If it weren't for the grainy texture of the solids on their own, it would be hard to discern them from yogurt either.
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Yep, I also like unfiltered lager about 40 times better than any ale in existence ;-)
 
TheNewMexican said:
So....... We have happily been using a California brand lite olive oil for the past number of years for general cooking, marinades, salads, etc. Sadly, when my wife went to purchase this past week, it has turned into a blend including two other countries in South America. We were originally prompted to switch to California based olive oil due to the questionable product coming out of Europe. Plus, the brand we chose was organic at the time. No longer seems to be the case.

Any suggestions on an either organic or very pure olive oil to switch to? Doesn't necessarily have to be California olive oil, but shouldn't have a bunch of garbage added either.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I've always liked Trader Joe's house brand of olive oil, great bang-for-buck, good oil. For a splurge I love Frankies 457 Spuntino Extra Virgin Olive Oil, top-notch stuff!
 
Chips said:
$7 delivered for a used-good condition copy on Amazon.
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In my humble opinion Tom Mueller is full of bull. First of all he recommends Trader Joe's Kalamata as the real deal which I have little or no doubt but his description of the oil as being peppery, pungent is way off. Not a trace of peppery. As to a very large percentage of EVOO being fake or adulterated the North American Olive Oil Association totally debunks that notion,IMO. They also certify a very large number of brands of olive oil which you can find on their website. As to a recommendation I would suggest doing some tasting and thinking about EVOOs uses. My current interest is in the health qualities of polyphenols. I have tried a few supposedly peppery oils with not a trace of pepperyness or maybe a very light pepperyness. Nothing substitutes for experience. Maybe the original poster can be more specific about the flavor profile. Peppery is the flavor of oleocanthal and bitter a couple of other phenols, so I read. That oleocanthal is peppery in the back of the throat is a tested fact. It is very likely from what I read that EVOO that is not peppery and or bitter would be less likely to have health protecting benefits. Check this out from the NAOOA.

Q. How can I be sure that I am buying authentic olive oil?

A. You may have read reports on the internet and social media about olive oil fraud are wildly exaggerated. While the potential for fraud always exists, in truth it is extremely rare. Don't take our word for it. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducted a study where they randomly collected 88 bottles of olive oil from D.C. area supermarkets and tested them. None were fake. Zero. The North American Olive Oil Association also conducts ongoing testing of olive oil in North American. Our off-the-shelf monitoring program is the largest of its kind in the United States and Canada. We purchase olive oil in supermarkets and test them against the standards set by the International Olive Council. We have monitored thousands of samples over several decades and found that more than 98% of olive oil available in North American supermarkets today is authentic. For additional assurance, you can look for olive oils that participate in our Quality Seal Program.
 
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One of the most simple but sublime desserts you can make (in a matter of seconds) is a high quality vanilla ice cream drizzled with Chacewater Blood Orange Olive Oil. I was very skeptical, I didn't think it would be that incredible till I tried it. The slight slippery mouthfeel of the oil contrasted with the creamy vanilla sweetness puts the most interesting Orange Julius flavor on your palate.

McEvoy Ranch makes one of the most pungent high polyphenol olive oil. It's pretty intense, I've gone thru 2 different bottles which I enjoyed before moving on to others, but I'd buy it again for drizzling. Both versions are very green tasting and asparagus.

https://www.mcevoyranch.com/limited-edition-olive-oil-375ml-2019r

New York Mag just wrote an article 2 days ago about The 18 Best Olive Oils that's a fun read.

http://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-olive-oils-according-to-chefs.html
 
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