Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The History of Olive Oil

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

Somewhere in your kitchen, you might have a bottle of olive oil. When you made that purchase you probably didn’t think twice about it, but believe it or not, olive oil used to be one of the most important products in the world.  While today it is almost exclusively used for cooking, in the past it had a wide variety of uses, which is what made it so valuable.  The olive oil you consume today is very similar to the product consumed thousands of years ago. In some cases, literally so.  Learn more about olive oil and how important it was and is to the world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast." or "Everything Everywhere is part of the Airwave Media podcast network Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Somewhere in your kitchen, you might have a bottle of olive oil. When you made that purchase, you probably didn't think twice about it. But believe it or not, olive oil used to be one of the most important products in the world. While today, it's almost exclusively used for cooking. In the past, it had a wide variety of uses, which made it so valuable. The olive oil you consume today is very similar to the product consumed thousands of years ago, and in some cases, literally so. Learn more about olive oil and how important it was and is to the world

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. For most people, olive oil is just one of many options of cooking oil

you can buy at the store, and olives are just something to garnish a martini or a bloody merry. If all of the olives in the world disappeared tomorrow, it would probably be a bad thing, but the world wouldn't end. However, at one time, olives really were a huge deal. They were on a par with wheat as being one of the most important products in the ancient Mediterranean, and olive oil had a wide variety of uses throughout the economy. The scientific name for olives is Olia Europa, or the European olive. And this is actually a misnomer because as olives were and are grown all around the Mediterranean, including North Africa and the Middle East. Olives are the fruit of the olive tree. We don't usually think of them as a fruit because they aren't

sweet, but they are most definitely a fruit. And likewise, that makes olive oil a fruit juice. If you ever want to be really clever, ask someone if they'd like some fruit juice and then give them olive oil. Hilarity will ensue. Researchers aren't exactly sure where the olive tree originated, but it was definitely somewhere around the Mediterranean. is evidence of olives dating back at least 100,000 years in modern-day Morocco along the Atlantic coast. There are some theories that it may have originated in Persia or Mesopotamia, some that it came from Syria, and others have suggested that it might have even originated in sub-Saharan Africa. We definitely know that olives were present in the eastern Mediterranean at least 19,000 years ago,

and there's evidence of the domestication of olive trees by the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete 5,000 years ago. The first evidence of the production of olive oil comes from near the Sea of Galilee about 8,000 years ago. At least 4,000 years ago, we know that there was an international trade in olive oil, as it was imported by the Egyptians and exported by the Greeks and Minoans. Olive oil was primarily transported in vessels known as amphora. Amphory were clay containers for transporting liquids, almost always olive oil or wine. They are distinctive for their pointed bottoms, and they could be put in wooden holders on ships and transported. There were literally millions of amphrey in the ancient Mediterranean. There is a hill in Rome called Monte Testaccio, which is nothing but a giant pile of broken clay amphory.

It's estimated that it holds the remains of 30 million amphora. The average amphora held about 20 to 25 liters of liquid. The process of making olive oil is incredibly simple. It's about as easy as extracting grape juice from grapes. Large stone olive presses were built, which had vertical wheels that would roll around crushing the olives. The oil would then drain out of a hole in the middle of the press. Further extraction might come from collecting the pulp and bags and pressing again, or washing the olives with water. This is why olive oil is known as a cold-pressed oil. Other cold-pressed oils include coconut

and avocado oil. The majority of cooking oils you'll find in a store are not cold-pressed oils. All seed oils, like corn, soybean, and canola oil have to be made in highly industrialized processes, which is why for the most part they didn't even exist until the 20th century. When the olives were pressed, one ton of olives could create 50 gallons or 200 liters of oil, and 120 gallons or 450 liters of a waste product known as amorka in Latin. Amorka was a watery residue that both smelled and tasted bad. Nonetheless, uses were found for it. It was applied to wood as a finishing agent to make the surface harder.

It was also applied to leather products for protection. It was used as animal feed and small amounts were prescribed as medicine. It was mixed into dirt floors so it would make them harder, and it was also used in laundry to repel moths. One of the biggest uses was as a pesticide. Supposedly, it kept away insects, animals, and weeds. The other big byproduct was obviously the leftover pulp. The two big uses were as animal feed and fertilizer.

They would just plow it right back into the soil. As for the oil itself, we know that the Romans had several different categories of oil, which are not that different from the categories used today. The highest category was known as oleum ex albis ulibus, and this was the highest quality oil taken from unripe olives. The next highest category was oleumviride, which came from olives that were just starting to ripen and turn color. The third category was oleum maturum, which came from black ripened mature olives. The fourth category was oleum caducum, which was a poor quality oil that came from olives usually picked off the ground. The fifth and lowest quality oil was oleum

kibarium, which came from olives that were slightly rotten or pest-ridden. This oil was usually used for non-consumption purposes. So, what did people do with olive oil? Well, quite a lot. For starters, it was used as a food product. The higher quality oils were used by more wealthy people, but people of all socioeconomic levels consumed a lot of olive oil. Based on the physical remains of people found in Pompeii, at least 20% of all calories consumed by the average Roman came from olive oil. And that averages out to about 20 liters of olive oil per year that was ingested. However, its use in cooking probably wasn't even the biggest use of olive oil. It was also used as a source of fuel.

Almost all lamps in the ancient Mediterranean would use olive oil as its fuel source. Small oil lamps are one of the most common items found in archaeological digs from the region. According to the Bible, when the Israelites fled Egypt, they could only use olive oil to light their menorah. One of, if not the biggest uses of olive oil in the Roman world, was for washing and bathing. The Romans didn't have soap, at least not what we would think of as soap. What they would do to clean themselves was to rub themselves with olive oil all over. The oil would then collect dirt and grime on the skin. Then they would scrape it off with a hooked metal object known as a stridgel.

The olive oil both cleansed and moisturized the skin. Wealthy people would often use specially scented olive oil for this purpose. The large public baths located all over the empire were some of the largest consumers of olive oil for this reason. In addition to all the above uses, olive oil was also used for medicinal purposes as well as religious ceremonies. The lowest category of olive oil would often be used as a lubricant for things like wagon wheels. Over time, many of the uses of olive oil were replaced by other products, Better fuels for lamps were found. Soap and detergents were developed that were superior to rubbing oil all over yourself, and superior lubricants were discovered.

While other cooking oils were developed, olive oil still held a place as nothing else could quite replace it. Today, the global production of olive oil is approximately 3.2 million metric tons with a value of $16 billion per year. The largest olive oil producing country, by far, is Spain, which produces 1.1 million metric tons of oil annually. Of the olive oil production in Spain, 75% of that is produced in Andalusia. The next largest olive oil producing countries are Italy, Tunisia, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, and Portugal. Just as olive oil production is centered around the Mediterranean, so too is olive oil consumption. The largest olive oil consuming country per capita, by a wide margin, is the tiny nation of San Moreno, which consumes 24 liters of olive oil per year.

and this is on a par with the Roman average 2,000 years ago. Greece, Italy, and Spain consumed about 14 liters per person per year, and Portugal, Syria, Jordan, Tunisia, and Lebanon consumed about 8 liters per capita per year. The governing organization for olive production is the International Olive Council or the IOC, not to be confused with the International Olympic Committee. They create the current standards for different grades of olive oil. They have four different grades of olive oil, some of which you're probably already familiar with. The highest grade is extra virgin olive oil.

Extra virgin olive oil must be mechanically cold pressed with no chemicals used for extraction. It also must have less than 0.8% free acidity, which is defined as the grams of free olick acid in 100 grams of oil. The next grade is just virgin olive oil. This is the same as extra virgin, except the free acidity can be as high as 2%. Below that is refined olive oil, which has been physically or chemically filtered. and the lowest grade is pomis oil. This is oil that comes after the first press to capture the

raining 5 to 8% of oil remaining in the pulp. There has been a huge problem in the olive oil industry in the last several years, because there has been a rash of fake olive oil which consists mostly of cheap seed oils like canola oil with added dyes. And one of the causes for this

is that the Italian mafia has gotten involved with the distribution of olive oil. A special note is one country that is not part of the internet. The International Olive Council, and that is the United States. The Department of Agriculture does have grades very similar to the IOCs, but the grades are not mandatory. And until recently, the FDA didn't even bother testing olive oil in the U.S. for counterfeit oils. So, if you are in the U.S. and you buy extraversion olive oil, you may have to do more research into the

product than you otherwise might. Way back in the intro, I mentioned that olive oil production was very similar today as it was 2,000 years ago. and in some cases, literally so. What I meant when I said literally is that olive trees live for a really long time. The oldest olive trees in the world are around 3,000 years old. There are olive trees out there that were around during the Roman Empire and are still producing olives. In Spain, there are trees called millinery trees, which are at least a thousand years old, and there are thousands of them in the country.

Some of the most expensive olive oils in the world come from these millinery trees, because the olives have to be picked by hand, not via mechanical means. It shouldn't come as a surprise that olive oil has a community of enthusiasts surrounding it just like wine does. There are places that do olive oil tastings, there are olive oil competitions, and there are even certified olive oil sommeliers. So, the next time you dip some bread in olive oil or pour some into a pan, take a moment to appreciate that you are taking part in a tradition that began at least 8,000 years ago. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast.

The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener Lily C-87 over at Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write The Best. So glad I found your podcast. I learned of Everything Everywhere Daily from Moxie Laboosha's Your Brains on Facts. I decided to give it a go and within three months I had listened to every episode. Too many favorite episodes to choose just one.

I listen with my kids too. Thank you for keeping it as clean as the topics allow. I hope your sleep schedule is better now than it was at first, and you aren't staying up all night to bring us this amazing work. Thanks, Lily C. I hope your kids enjoy the show as much as you do. I've actually toyed with the idea of adding a daily email that corresponds to each episode that would provide a short quiz to test retention of what they learned on the show. I don't know how much demand there would be for it, but it's something I would consider. As for my sleep schedule, I am literally recording this at every day. 5.12 a.m. So, no, my sleep schedule is still messed up. I'm considering just moving to Hawaii.

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