Olive Oil: Not Just for Cooking

As a kid, growing up in Calabria (Southern Italy), olive oil was a main cooking ingredient, but more importantly, it was most often the only medicine in our cabinet. My mom used it for everything; if we had a stomach ache she would give us a tablespoon of olive oil to drink; if we had an ear ache she would warm up a little olive oil to drop into our ears; if our skin was itchy - yup, olive oil rub.

It went beyond medicine; if she suspected that someone gave us the evil eye, she would call the neighbor’s ‘nonna’ to come by and pray to break the spell. I used to hide under the table and listen to the ritual which consisted of dropping some olive oil in a basin full of water and watch to see what patterns the oil formed and only ‘nonna’ knew for sure if the evil eye had been cast. Olive oil was our life really, a bit like Windex in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
It amazed me when I arrived in Canada - wow, no olive oil anywhere! It was still a luxury in the 70’s in Toronto and the large supermarkets only carried vegetable and canola oils. So we had to go to the local Italian market to get it, because even though we were in Canada, my mom still swore by our old country remedies.

So when the olive oil craze hit Canada, most of us who are of Southern Italian descent were thrilled to finally take the oil out of the closet and share our stories with the rest of society without having them think we were nuts.

Now as I stand in the oil section of the supermarket I see people checking out labels and deciding what brand to buy and what the difference is now that we have an abundance of products. Italy is one of the top olive oil producing countries in the Mediterranean, but what most visitors who travel to the north don’t realize is that one third of all the olive oils produced in Italy comes from the South where the dry terrain produces some of the best qualities. If you are lucky enough to be traveling in Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey and even Israel during the harvest, it’s a great time to learn a lot about olives and the process of producing the various lines of oils. All of these countries now offer a huge selection of discovery or tasting tours to really learn about this fascinating ingredient. One itinerary I came across that sounds particularly lovely is from Trafalgar Tours and takes you through Italy with stops in Chianti, Tuscany and Florence, where you can sample wines, local cheeses, meets, and, of course, olive oil!

If you have any interesting stories about olive oil of your own, post them to our comments - I'd love to hear about them!