Page 55 - Spring2013

All Thumbs Book Reviews

Extra Virginity: fats and oils, is a combination of many different
The Sublime and Scandalous types of fatty acids whose percentages vary de-
World of Olive Oil pending upon the type of olive tree, the amount
By Tom Mueller of water it receives and the climate it grows in.
W.W. Norton and Co., 2011 The primary fatty acid, oleic acid, can range
from 55 to 85 percent in various oil samples.
Even if olive oil is not part of your regular Because olive oil is mostly monounsaturated, it
diet, this is a fascinating look into the historical remains fresh longer than vegetable oils that are
and contemporary uses of olive oil for food and polyunsaturated.
industry, as well as its cultural traditions. From When not heat treated or industrially pro-
its farming, processing and distribution, to its cessed, EVO contains over one hundred poly-
industrial usage and medicinal and nutritional phenols, vitamins and other volatile compounds
benefits, this is a story of what seems to be one that protect and repair the body as well as act as
of the most ancient sources of food and renewable anti-inflammatories and reduce oxidization of
energy, and consequently, food fraud. Along the cells.
way, the story of butter and margarine are told, as This one and one-half billion dollar olive
well as a rejection of the conventional wisdom, oil industry in the United States is governed by
which blames saturated fat for heart disease. some of the loosest food purity laws. Although
This book is at its best when documenting multiple government agencies consistently re-
the extensive fraud in adulterating olive oil, one ported adulteration from 1930-1990, today not
that has been practiced from the 24th century even the FDA tests for olive oil fraud. In 2010,
B.C. to the present, with the highly sophisticated the USDA did offer some regulations, but these
and ubiquitous practice of refining and blending remain voluntary and unenforceable. As Mueller
olive oil with other inferior oils. In fact, after states, “The United States of America is an oil
finishing this book, readers have no choice but to criminal’s dream.”
question whether or not they have actually ever “Cookbooks, like histories, are written by
consumed one hundred percent extra virgin olive the victors,” says the author. When Germanic
oil (EVO). Fortunately, Mueller also instructs the tribes overran the Roman Empire, animal fats of-
reader on how to better distinguish and locate ten replaced the traditional Greco-Roman diet of
high quality EVO. bread, wine and olive oil. Even the philosophers
Mueller provides us with some basic and en- of the day would soon embrace this new diet. For
gaging information about the olive as tree, fruit example, the Greek physician Anthimus wrote in
and oil. The cultivated olive tree, Olea europaea, about 500 A.D. about the quality of lard which
is the domesticated cousin of the wild oleaster, was used as a dressing for vegetables and was This 1.5
native to the Mediterranean basin and much of even extolled as a cure-all: “…a remedy [such]
the Middle East. Unlike other common oils that that they have no need for other medicines.” billion dollar
are extracted from seeds (sunflower, canola, soy, After the Catholic Church approved butter industry in the
etc.), olive oil can be extracted by mechanical consumption during Lent in the fifteenth century, U.S. alone has
methods alone because the olive is a fruit with cookbooks of the time then included recipes us-
a much higher water content than that contained ing butter as well. Fast forward to today and the some of the
in seeds. increased popularity of olive oil consumption loosest laws
Primarily as a result of oxidation, olive oil, (as well as the war on saturated fats) is generally concerning
unlike wine, begins to degrade in taste and qual- credited to Ancel Keys and his Seven Countries
ity immediately after harvest. Olive oil, like other Continued on Page 56 olive oil purity.
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