April 16, 2020 • 45 mins
Did you know that the coconut is one of the only seafaring, self-propagating crops? Or that most of the world’s olive oils are produced in Spain, but end up blended, imported then exported, far from their country of origin? How about the fact that organized crime infiltrated the Italian food system for decades? Climate, locality and even human welfare by way of Fairtrade have all seeped into the consciousness of many well informed and capable shoppers. But, when it comes to the complexities of the commodification of our food, what facts do we consider when we grocery shop? We explore on this episode of Point of Origin from Whetstone Magazine.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Today, we're going to discuss two unique but ubiquitous fruits
that have been part of staple diets around the world
for a very long time. We're first going to discuss
what might be considered the world's only seafaring fruit, and
we're going to travel to India to learn about its
(00:25):
nomadic origins and what it's growing global popularity means for
local farmers in Southeast Asia. Next stop, we meet wet
Stone co founder Melissa she in Spain, where she is
reintroduced to another familiar fruit that is being harvested, green
and unripe, and it is used to produce one of
(00:48):
the world's most ancient natural cooking oils. As we follow
these familiar culinary commodities on their journey from their place
of origin to our kitchens and plates, we learned about
honoring the origins and how markets, supply, and demand are
shaping the futures of these crops today. On point of origin,
(01:09):
join us as we dive deep into the world of
culinary commodities. It's the Fruit Edition, and we're exploring some
of the curious conundrums that they face today. But they
(01:31):
can stay alive. The seeds stays alive while it floats,
so it floats on the seas and it sprouts on
whatever coasted lands, on tropical coasted lands on In southeastern India,
organic farmer and permaculturalist Symritate Molly started noticing that farmers
in her area, we're beginning to experiment with a new
type of crop which historically wasn't grown in the area
(01:56):
because it was at too high of an altitude. I'm
in the mountain in the Palony Hills of South India,
so it's quite high and I run out coop with
the farmers, with the local farmers in my village and
consim rates farming community. The effects of climate change over
the past few years have been immediate and apparent. Basically,
(02:19):
the mountains have been getting warmer and warmer, and so
every year the coconut kind of climbs higher and higher,
so the coconut can grow at a higher altitude. And
the local farmers in my area were noticing this. And
where it's colder now it's getting warmer, so it's easier
for a coconut to grow there. Basically, coconuts are really
(02:44):
hardy plants and they'll grow anywhere they have a temperature
of higher than twenty two degrees celsius. So the farmers
in my area were starting to experiment growing coconuts in
our area, trying to predict the future and the fact
that it's going to get warmer. So that's what made
(03:05):
me interested in researching where coconuts were from and the
kind of conditions they need to grow. So the origins
of coconut are kind of murky, and there wasn't the
(03:25):
any test that was done. It couldn't pinpoint any one origin.
There were two strains that were found. One was from
the Indian Ocean and the other was on the Pacific Ocean,
so it was really divided across two oceans, which connects
with the fact that the coconut is a seafaring fruit.
(03:46):
I think it's one of the only ones in the world.
So the coconut has been traveling on the oceans around
the world for millennia before humans have been traveling. Definitely,
and contrary to popular belief, it's we don't have colonizers
to thank for the coconuts. But yeah, so I like
(04:08):
to call it a seafood. That's interesting. So when you
say that it's a seafaring fruit, you mean that coconuts
without the help of humans, can propagate on the water.
Is that right, Yeah, they have been propagating on on water.
They can. They can stay alive. The seeds stays alive
while it floats. It also floats, so it floats on
(04:31):
the seas and it sprouts on whatever coasted lands on
tropical coasted lands on Coconuts are so unique because of
their seafaring nature. They can be found throughout the global South,
having self propagated along shorelines over thousands of years, likely
long before humans were even around. Today, they firmly planted
(04:53):
into local and regional cuisines in South Asia, making coconuts
foundational and a stable not only in diets as a
way of life in coastal India, the Philippines and Indonesia
the top producers of coconut in the world. The coconut
plant provides more than just meat, milk, and oils for
food and sustenance. So it's typically an island house would
(05:16):
have around for coconut trees and you can build your
house and make your clothes and have fuel, water, food, alcohol.
Everything started for you with those trees. So it's known
as the tree of life, and it's very easy to
have a self sustainable lifestyle with these four coconuts, so
(05:39):
it's worshiped. Basically, in the India, we use a coconut
in all our rituals. The coconut is cracked before you
start anything new, or get married or any of the
like life's big moments. So it's a symbol of fertility,
(06:00):
the womb. But it's also a symbol of your ego
as all as your head. So it's like your sacrificing
your ego. Every time you break a coconut, it signifies
it or your your head or your ego. Basically, I
sort of like that image. It's a pretty intense one.
The idea of the coconut representing your head and then
(06:22):
being machett id open to get to the flesh. That's
sort of the ultimate sacrifice. I guess, yeah it is.
It is so basically they used to sacrifice. I don't
know if you want to say this day of but
they used to sacrifice people and animals in the old days.
But instead of instead of sacrificing them, they break a coconut.
(06:43):
So the blood and the water coming out the fresh coconut,
so it looks like the head. Wow, I will never
eat another coconut without thinking about that. Um, that's that's
pretty amazing. So I want to ask you again or
go back to you know, the role of the coconuts.
(07:05):
I guess, not really the role, but like the sudden
demand over the last five years. As a consumer, it
seems to me, if I had to guess, I would
say that the trend of the health conscious types who
are drinking coconut water on a daily basis, sometimes around
(07:27):
the clock, is coconut water. What we have to blame
for this sudden spike in demand? Yeah, I think so.
I mean I was doing some research. I found that
the top players in the globle coconut water market is Vita, Coco,
Google Cola, and PepsiCo. So I mean they have huge
(07:48):
marketing apartments and budgets, so they're shifting to something I
guess that's more health conscious, but the whole system is
still the same rate, So I don't know how healthy
that actually is. We may have all noticed and prescribed
(08:15):
to the boom and foods, oils and drinks, not to
mention supplements that are derived from the coconut beyond just
coconut water. Large corporate, multinational food producers are scrambling to
keep pace with the rapidly growing demand and global taste
for all things coconut. The problem has become because prices
(08:37):
around the world have increased so much because of its
it's like trendy now, so people wanna make money off it.
Coconut is a very sensitive tree, and because of the
mono cropping, and because of the fact that they're probably
putting fertilizers and petrochemicals to help the coconut grow, the
(08:58):
land of the soil is getting depleted and the productivity
of the tree has become almost less than it was
thirty years ago. So the major problem around the world
is that the countries and plantations that have been supplying
coconut around the world are now producing less and less
(09:18):
of it, which is why the price of coconut oil
is rising as it is an almost in the past
five years wow. And so the cost of the coconut
has gone up as the levels of production have decreased.
Is that what you're saying, Yeah, yeah, the demand is
(09:41):
way higher than the supply, which means that now those
four coconuts that a family has on an island, they
would rather sell it and get money and buy those
clothes and fuel from somewhere else instead of using the
coconut they have. I mean, I'm a bit of an extremist.
There's no real solution to the food supply chain around
(10:04):
the world, and I don't believe that it's wrong for
Americans or anyone in the global not to use coconut,
But I just think that just going local is just
the easiest solution. So of course, now coconuts are not
(10:33):
seafaring anymore. They don't propagate themselves, so they're not flowing
on the sea and landing up on coursts and planting themselves.
So they're being planted in huge monocrops, plantations in the
areas where they are traditionally grown. So it's kind of
getting to the place where palm oil is. We're moving
(10:56):
a large rainforests are natural um landscape. It's to grow
coconut because of how how much money they get you
through exports. It's a twofold thing. So because of global warming,
we can grow more coconuts and higher places, and not
necessarily just by the coast, but also where they've already
(11:16):
traditionally been growing. They aren't yielding as much coconut as
they used to. Because of the way that they're being grown.
We'll be right back with wet Stone co founder Melissa
(11:38):
she him Hice. Even mal is my business partner and
(12:03):
the co founder of wet Stone. She's in and Lucia,
Spain to introduce us to the farmers and the community
that have been growing the fruit bearing trees from our
next story for many generations. How are these growers balancing
innovating while also preserving tradition and honoring origin, especially in
an industry that many think of it's just a commodity.
(12:30):
Here in the sea of trees. We're standing on soil
that is a deep brick red. It's crumbly clay like
infused with the color of rust. And when you look up,
all that meets I is this continuous canopy of leaves
that are crowning these noveley branches and tree trunks of
the olive tree. You don't have to look too closely
(12:51):
to see that each canopy is dotted with the unripe
greens and darker blacks of maturing fruit. And just to
give you an example, like one tree, one olive tree
is maybe a case of of of olive oil. Only
one tree. It's just one case bottles. That's it nine ms.
(13:12):
So it takes a lot of trees to make a
lot of olive oil. One lot is usually around on
twenty tho liters. Okay, so you need to be moving
quickly unloading. They're ali's depending on the quality of the
olive or the variety of the olive. Today, the morning
(13:33):
sky is calm, bright and luminous, while at the same
time being completely blanketed by airy and pillowy clouds. There's
a skyhike cover that is so vast and high up
in the atmosphere that makes the sprawling landscape we're standing
in feel all at once both smaller and a little
more comprehensible, but also grander and of an unimaginable scale.
(13:57):
We're here amongst the olive groves of Hlio is STEPA
with Kyle Davis, an expert manager and an expert in
regional olive oil production. We're harvesting olives here in Andalusia,
and we're meeting one of the five thousand farmers that
Kyle works with. It's almost mid day, but it still
feels like dawn is breaking and the day is not
(14:18):
quite fully emotion But then stillness is abruptly broken by
the sounds of an early harvest in full swing. So
they'll grab the tree with the tractor on the with
like kind of a fork on the bottom, and then
(14:38):
they open up this batman upside down umbrella underneath the tree.
They shake the tree with that fork. All of the
olives fall into the umbrella and go right into a hopper.
Once the oppera is full, the hopper dumps it into
a trailer. Once the trailer full, the trailer goes to
the mill. One farmer brings a trailer to the mill.
(15:03):
He's going to first check in with a computer screen
and he's gonna scan his ID badge. His ID badge
is going to pull up a plot of his land,
and he's gonna indicate on the computer exactly where he
just harvested. Traceability starting to be not just the farmer,
but the actual plot of land that he just harvested from.
(15:25):
The day drop the alive the olives like we saw
being collector's gonna happital piece of sticks. This ability to
trace fruit back to the original plot of land it
was harvested from is one of the factors that makes
old a step as so unique. The farmers details on
(15:45):
its harvest of the day are one of numerable inputs
and bits of data that Old As Stepa's oils mills
carefully monitor each step of the process, from when an
olive arrives at the mill to the process of cold
extraction of oil, to testing for different physical and chemical properties,
storage and bottling, makes the process here perhaps one of
(16:08):
the most advanced in the world. The olive groves at
ol Stepa, like the one being harvested here today, have
an ancient history dating back more than two millennia, but
it is in more recent history. Over the last half century,
(16:30):
the agriculture and the region has been revolutionized and technologized,
allowing producers like ol Stepa to access the most up
to date oil extraction machinery. At the heart of ole
As Stepa's business lies an approach to all of farming
that is very different from the models we see around
the world. The cooperative model in Spain is pretty unique.
(16:51):
I don't think that there's any other country in the
world that's really has as many cooperatives as Spain and
really has such a country that's so open to cooperation,
not just on like an agricultural level, but on a
on a citizen level. I mean there's I mean people
here in Spain, I would say, you know, two thirds
of the population at one time or another has been
(17:13):
a volunteer or collaborates with NGO. Spain is a very
is a society that likes to cooperate and and assets.
They have a lot of cooperatives and that's very different
than countries like Italy, for example, in terms of olive oil,
and there's no there's no there's no real olive oil
cooperatives in Italy. There's a lot of small farmers or
(17:37):
medium sized farmers that own their own small mill. But
the cool thing about having an olive oil cooperative is
is that you join the efforts of a large amount
of people who individually wouldn't be able to afford an
olive mail and you all milt together and you're all
kind of in the same boat, and you all kind
of follow the same philosophy. And the cool thing with
(17:58):
ely a stepans like our flow has been quality driven,
and that's not necessarily the cooperative model. Across Spain. In
terms of olive oil, we have kind of everything. We
have small family farmers that might own only you know,
maybe fifteen or twenty actors, and then we have larger
farmers who have been we have inherited land over various
(18:22):
generations and in our farming actors, so we have kind
of have everything in between. But they're all in the
same boat, you know, and they're all fighting for excellence. Okay.
So we pay our farmers much more money for the
per kilo of olive than any other cooperative in Spain,
and that's undisputable. As Kyle explains, their concept is really simple.
(18:53):
Olio a step overpaced farmers for early harvest oil, so
that growers are incentivised to get olives off the tree
and into the mill as quickly as possible. And why
is it that more unripe and greener olives produce the
higher quality oil. And the most important factor, I'd say
there is the time of harvest. And so as the
(19:15):
olive tree produces a flower and the flower gets pollinated
and the olive sprouts on the branch, it starts off green, okay,
and it it's green. And as it growing and it's green,
and it makes it reaches its maximum size. And as
it reaches its maximum size, and as it starts to
mature more, it turns from green to purple to black, okay,
(19:39):
and then it falls off the tree. The maximum fat
content of the olive is going to be when it's
almost ready to fall off the tree. But the amount
of polyphenols, the amount of fruit that you're going to
get out of that olive are going to be lower
than if you were to harvest it earlier. And so
that's what you see early harvest and earlier, you know,
(20:02):
on bottles, etcetera. Harvesting early, you get less fat, you
get less oil out of the olive, but the quality
is a lot higher. So what exactly are these polyphenols
that Kyle is talking about. They are the micro nutrients
that give olive oils it's so called superpowers. Green olives especially,
(20:23):
are rich and polyphenols that we can only get through
certain plant based foods, and together with other dietary reducing
agents such as vitamin C and vitamin E, are referred
to as antioxidants. Higher polyphenols also increase the shelf life
of olive oil, but are a key factor in contributing
to the most defining and desired flavor factor of high
(20:44):
quality olive oil. Bitterness, by the way, the one and
only basic flavor in oil is bitterness. The rest is
have to taste like all the aromas and tag tile sensations,
(21:08):
like the stringency and dry our mouth and spiciness that
we can feel anywhere in the mouth or maybe in
the throat. Even this is Alfonso Fernandez something in a
kind of joke. Away, I can say that I'm a
priest of olive oil, so I I make believers. I
want to tell too, for the people to know what
(21:28):
is the truth about olive oil and everything that they
can learn and enjoy and how to use and how
good is for the health everything, because I hate national
listm on on olive oil, even if I'm lucky enough
to be they're talking about olive oil or from a
spin all over the world. But I mean many of
(21:48):
the love trees that we have, they have been with
us longer than many borders that we have to We
have folive trees with more than two thousand, three thousand
years old. Alfonso has devoted himself to sharing knowledge and
(22:09):
understanding of olive oil, it's history and its cultural heritage
here in Spain and beyond the borders that define his country.
He's what's called an oleologist, the name for an olive
oil tasting expert. Importantly, Alfonso emphasizes that what makes olive
oil really unique is not just that it's an ancient product,
but that it's a completely all natural product. After all,
(22:32):
Spanish aciet for oil is derived from Arabic azayet or
olive juice. It's unlike many of our cooking oils today
that go through different refining processes. But the main thing
that nothing that everybody will understand quite easily. Extraorginally oil
is real food. So he's the fatty juice of a fruit.
(22:54):
So all the extracted by mechanical means, so the end
it's like a juice, but releasing the water. I mean
it has natural polyphonos that is a natural antioxidant. The
people that they don't like the bitterness, the bitterness is
one of the best antioxidants that we have. And these
are the kind of things that the oly world will
bring to us that not many other facts that is
(23:18):
going to give us. His family has been farming in
the northern region of Andalusia for generations. As you know,
I'm I'm part of olive wall farmers family. My brothers
are still around the family farming with olive trees. My
uncle's my grandpa. He got retired with seventy two years
old from the farming. So I've being devoted to this
for a long long time since fift generations far Us
(23:41):
I know and for me, olive all is a big,
big passion. We have to we have to give them
much more than we usually give because some people they
consider this a commodity. And I think that they've been
with us for so long time that we need to
give respect. That is what they've given to us. The
other world. Yes, it's in I. I come from my
(24:01):
small village that is called Montea's almost in the center
of Andalusia geographical center, and Aluthia is like if you're
bend over Portugal, but to cross over Spain. And it's
the largest production area in the world. When I say
the largest, is the only my region or Spain, but
I think that is the largest. The olive crops, the
(24:22):
olive trees planted in Spain is the largest artificial olive
grove olive forest in the world. That's my thought. Alfonso's
family farm is located in Cordoba, the province of Andalusia,
which along with neighboring province Jayenne, produces thirty of the
entire world's production. That's a lot of olive trees. And
(24:44):
Alusia is the most populous area in Spain and has
a temperate climate with hot, dry summers and mild winters
that has made it an agricultural haven for thousands of years.
No one knows exactly where the olive tree originated, but
has been naturalized to the Mediterranean basin, including here in
Andy Lucia and across Spain, flourishing on uncultivated lands for millennia.
(25:09):
Farmers over generations have bred and propagated plants for culinary uses,
developing cultivars that flourish in their local to war, which
has led to the thousands of different varietals and the
world see today. In Spain alone, there are actually hundreds
of types of olives. We have two farms. One is
in here in Montalvande, Corlova, and the other one is
(25:32):
very close to Cordova, to Cordova village. It is not
a big surface. In total is about sixty actors more
or less. And yes, and we treated with a lot
of respect with pequala and Arbkina varieties, and pequala has
been with us for centuries here and pequal is one
of the varieties. We have been explained in Spain more
than more than three hundred varieties all over the world
(25:54):
more than one thousand, and each variety is like a
different flavor profile and the friend behavior. It's like we're
talking about wine, like different types of grapes. The flavors
and characteristics of each olive as well as its appearance
is completely unique. Alfonso walks us through how to taste
olive oil and how you might process the flavors. Unlike wine,
(26:21):
extra virgin olive oil is the only food product that
has to undergo a tasting test, highly systemic and tightly
controlled panel in order to be classified or named as
extra virgin olive oil, which is part of what Alfonso does.
Something that's important to mention about Alfonso is that he's
not just an oleologist, He's also a wine teaster. In Spain.
(26:42):
I have to tell you that I'm not only a
olive oid taster, I am also wine taster. Um. I'm
in a panel test of three determinations of origin here
in Spain. I have a w c T three level
three cores already passed, and so I know what is
to taste wine and then now what is to is
the olive oil. And it's not better or worst. I
(27:04):
mean you have less steps on tasting olive oil, but
you need to know how to taste the olive oil.
And I want to make it very simple and and
you can. You can think about tasting olive oil like
dancing the bowls. You know that abowts is one to three, one,
two threes every every time every time they sends steps,
(27:26):
So tasting olivel is basically the same. So first step
is the intensity of roma. We call that fruitness can
be robust, medium or low. Then we have the second
one that is what type of roma we are getting
out of that olivel. And that is the main thing
because it has to remind us always too alive things
(27:51):
on the nature. So an extrovergin only oil has to
remind us always to something that is alive and fresh.
If it's musty, if it's fermented, if it's run seed,
if it's it's not going to be a good property
for the extra regin level. And then the third step
is when you put in your mouth, and that is
quite relevant because they have to taste for human is
(28:13):
quite quite important. Something really important is that we have.
We need to salibrate properly in the mouth. When we
taste olible, we just take a little zip, not that
much so that one we salibrate, we motion it. We
make a kind of like when you're tasting wine, you
inhale summer. In the olive oil, we do the same
(28:34):
but a little bit more sharply, let's say a little
bit more aggressive. But if you're not used to do that,
we make a kind of noise. I don't know if
the people will be able to recognize it on the podcast,
but it's going to be something like that. Can I
do it? Yes, it's a kind of zip's it's like
you in here somewhere. And if you don't know how
to do that, because the problem of that is that
(28:54):
you have to cut quite aggressively. It just tumble it
down with your tongue and keep the olivel in your
mouth about thirty seconds or forty five seconds and enjoyed,
enjoy it, and then you'll solow it up. And you
know what happens if you solow up too quickly, that
is going to have much more spiciness than what it
really has. And people is quite sensitive to a spineness
(29:22):
along with the flavor ideas of grain and of nature
and life and of spiciness. One flavor profile that we
come back to you is a taste of bitterness. This
is an olive oil flavor that some might find unfamiliar,
perhaps stark, but for olive oil, it's actually a defining characteristic.
This bitterness is an indication of a high level of polyphenols,
(29:45):
specifically flavoroid polyphenols that give us this taste. In fact,
the absence of bitterness in olive oil is what defines
it to be a sweet olive oil. Yes, it is
like in wine. They have the they have the Channin's
is exactly the same one that we have in the
olivel that is making that bitterness, and the bitterness comes
(30:07):
from the variety. Not every oil has bitterness. When there's
no bitterness on the olivel, we call it, we name
it as a sweet olive oild. That for the people
that is not used to that bitterness and they don't
know how to play with that on on the kitchen,
they can use a variety that we call sweet so
(30:28):
they don't have that kind of bitterness that they don't like.
And they don't like because it's not because they don't like.
They don't like because they don't expect it from the fact.
While I have a nice story because my my grandpa
he used to name from i'm inni montal one. He
used to name the type of olive oils extraorgin oi
oils like two ones. It's like we have white wine
(30:50):
and red wine. He used to name it like white
oil and black oil. The main two varieties in my
area are ochilaka that means wide leaf and pequal. Piqual
comes from the peak at the ends shape of the olive.
And he used to name the biguel like black olive
(31:11):
olive oil and the one from ahelanka the white olive wild.
And it's because the piqua was deepest and more robust
extorginally oil, and the ahrilanka is more has less bitterness
and less stringency, let's say. And it's more aromatic, or
usually it's more aromatic than pequal. Now with the state
(31:32):
of the art technology that we have, we can get
everything out of our knowlive to give plenty of a
Roman flavor. So the pequal is like rubbust high intensity aroma.
Tomato leaves is a little bit of green grass, olive
olive leaves are romans and it's absolutely wonderful. I love it.
(31:53):
I can't think about cooking without piqua at all. And
(32:15):
there are alan see okay, I would like to show
you a very good example to illustrate what I'm saying.
You're going to see. The Olioteca is there is the
name that we have given to this special place. Is
something unique in the world. We have a justing in
(32:38):
in front of the building, a very big collection. It's
something unique and we have more than one hundred and
fifty varieties comporting countries. Very is already black. But I'm
standing in the world's only library for olive trees. The
(33:00):
Oleo Teca, founded to preserve and study the bio diversity
within the olive family. Honest Sanchez is an educator and
coordinator at the Juana Amone Gillon Foundation, which focuses on
breaking the rural sector and the olive farming in Spain
closer to the public. Since late eighties, while the region's
(33:22):
cultivation of olive trees intensified, leading to common mass production
practices like mono cropping that have eliminated some of the
diversity of the olives being farmed. The Foundation has been
growing the varietals and its oleo teca. Many of these
trees here are more than thirty years old, while some
of the newer transplants are just two or three years
(33:44):
old and incredibly already bearing fruit for study. It's like
a garden, okay. They We produce olive oil with each
variety every year from like some for example, we have
brought varieties from Israel or maybe Go Mexico, Albania, Syria
(34:04):
or Italy. So we study each variety. How is the niman,
how is is the best way to produce each olive
oil um, how it grows in our in our land,
dying in our property, and how is the evolution To
(34:29):
study in bio diversity seeks to understand not only the
different traits and benefits unique to each type of olive,
how local t is expressed, and how different olives vary
when grown in different regions of the world. The Foundation
partners with local universities and research groups understand traits such
as physiochemical properties and their correlation to disease prevention, and
(34:54):
physical properties of the plant like heartiness or resistance to disease.
We'll come back to the importance this work later, but
for now, let's wander through the growth on it to
meet some of the unique varieties from the olives being
cataloged and preserved here. Although all of these trees have
similar structural characteristics, a beautiful variety of colors, shapes, textures,
(35:17):
and sizes of fruit showcase the level of diversity possible
even within a closely related group of species. There's so
many characteristics that seem to be different. Some fruit or
small and round couple of shapes, while others, like the
Sartha espana, a variety a typical to Spain is wrinkled
(35:37):
and almost unidentifiable as an olive our other varieties. For example,
we have a god it's a typical variety from a
Spain is a very big one. But you can think,
or you may think that the quality is going to
be better because it's bigger, that the fruit is bigger,
or it's going to be to produce a out more
(36:00):
quantity because it's bigger down for example are beginna. But
it isn't necessary to be like this, because you can
have a very high quality oil from the variety Abkina,
and the goal isn't used to produce oils just for
(36:20):
for it. The Godals Sivianna is a beloved Spanish cultivar
and the biggest variety of olive by a large margin.
It's got a huge pit that's proportionately as large as
its pulpy flesh. Because it's low in oil content, this
variety is commonly seen as the teple olive and not
used for production. The Cora nick olive originating from the Peloponnese,
(36:46):
looks actually opposite or at all. It yields super high
intensity fruit that yields lots of oil. It's constant yields
of fruity balanced oil have also made it one of
the most popular olives ground an injuries. And you see
for example a colneg it's a variety from grief that
(37:07):
have a very good property and the flavor is a
very interesting a variety to study and maybe to develop
in the future, we don't know. And we have a
very particular one that it for example, as a blancot
(37:28):
is the wild olive Greek, but they are blanco. White
is very particular because the old when the time of
the harvest, thing arrives thanks to white instead to to black.
So it's a very special one. The oil isn't so good,
(37:53):
but it's a very particular old to show people that
hams to to affend a good man to visit as
to explain how important and how it divers and how
big is the olive oil sector. That's the reason of
our foundation to explain all the people, to educate people
(38:14):
and to to show them going for a walk. It's
the easier way to explain them how important is the
olivel sector for Spain and for our culture. The foundation
promotes olive oil culture. Okay, nowadays we are using many
innovative techniques, maybe in the development of new businesses in
(38:39):
in many companies or many sectors, but especially in the
olive oil sector. We try to balance the use of
the innovation with the tradition in Spain. Spain is the
main producer of olive oil in the world, that's a fact.
And the eighty percent of the olive oil that is
(39:01):
produced by Spain is from Andalusia. It's a very important
point because two hundred and fifty families of Andalusia depends
on the olive oil sector. So we have to explain
how important is the oil, the olive oil in our culture,
in our society. Okay, how important is for our history,
(39:27):
for our tradition. It's anna details. Olive oil is an
ancient pillar to diets here. The average Spaniard consumes one
leader per month, and this integral role in diet is
true to cultures throughout the Mediterranean basin. Along with the
growing global taste for olive oil and the pressure to
produce more is unquestionable. Growths here in Andalusia today are
(39:50):
dominated by piqual Oli blanca and Urbikina, and Pequal specifically
has become the world's most prolific olive account for half
of Spain's olive trees. These varietals hardiness, high oil content
and high polyphenal content have made them favorites for intensive
(40:10):
mass growing. The story sounds familiar because it is farming
in the twenty one century around the world have brought
to question many practices about how highly demanded crops are
produced and what that means for farmers, farm workers, local
agriculture and economies, and for the health of the land
(40:31):
and environment in the face of not just a changing climate.
In a changing environment, there's also international tree attentions to consider,
which we want covered today. The end of the day,
one of the most overwhelming forces that farmers are beholden
to is simply the supply and demands of a commoditized market.
(40:51):
And it's become especially problematic for our farmers in Spain
since the price has fallen below the cost of production
in the past couple of years. Because Kyle Davis, our
first expert from Olio as stepa co Op at least
sums it up. I definitely feel for a lot of
the small farmers who you know, their their entire livelihood
(41:13):
depends on the crop and and on prices being at
reasonable levels. But the fact of the matter is is
that there's been a lot of olive trees planted over,
you know, throughout Spain over the last five ten years,
and there was a really large amount of production um
(41:35):
in terms of the two thousand and nineteen twenty harvest,
and there was a lot of carryover as well after
a record harvest in the two thousand and eighteen nineteen harvest,
And so there's just a lot of olive oil in
the market, and it just kind of comes down to
supply and demand, and so you know, when there's a
(41:55):
lot of oil, people dropped their prices and and and
so on. Fortunately, we're in a situation where the current
prices for all three categories Lampante, virgin and virgin extra
are pretty much below cost of production, which is which
is tough for the farmers for sure. While co op
(42:22):
structures and pricing practices like that of Oleo Steppa may
help protect farmers from some of the volatility we see
in global supply and demand, perhaps these co op models
can be a part of the solution for the future,
but it's yet to be told whether these incentives we
enough to help maintain the livelihood of farmers in the industry,
(42:44):
Like sym rates farming community in India who have become
interested in coconut farming as a new cash crop. Kyle
describes that for small farmers that are hurting now, we
see groves and parcels of land that were historically producing
all of are being replanted for crops that are paying
more now, like almonds. This feels like a complex conundrum
(43:08):
because at the end of the day, it brings to
question our entire global food system, and there's not an
easy way to understand, let alone solve for the complexities
that that may brain. So where do we go from here?
My answer for consumers can be in making informed voting
decisions based on what we purchase. At the end of
(43:31):
the day, I think it's most important to start from
an understanding of origin and where the things we eat
and drink come from. Supporting small farmers and producers who
are socially environmentally responsible is also a great starting point
for olive oil. Our friends in Spain encourage us to
(43:52):
understand and support biodiversity within olives. Supporting the farmers like
our friends in Spain that are preserving this richness and
plants and crops from around the world can help honor
cultural origins, but can also hold a key to resilience
in solving conundrums. In our edible Commodities features h h
(44:21):
h h h h h h h h h h
h h h h h h h h h. Thank
you to our guests on this episode, farmer Symritt, Molly
Kyle Davis of Oleo Steppa, oleologist Alfonso Fernandez, and an
(44:45):
A Sanchez of the Wan ramon Gian Foundation. To learn more,
check out our website www. Wet Stone magazine dot com,
including for tips on how to taste and select olive
oil and how to just generally better appreciate the global
diversity of unique cultivars h m hm, h m hmm.
Today, we're going to discuss two unique but ubiquitous fruits
that have been part of staple diets around the world
for a very long time. We're first going to discuss
what might be considered the world's only seafaring fruit, and
we're going to travel to India to learn about its
(00:25):
nomadic origins and what it's growing global popularity means for
local farmers in Southeast Asia. Next stop, we meet wet
Stone co founder Melissa she in Spain, where she is
reintroduced to another familiar fruit that is being harvested, green
and unripe, and it is used to produce one of
(00:48):
the world's most ancient natural cooking oils. As we follow
these familiar culinary commodities on their journey from their place
of origin to our kitchens and plates, we learned about
honoring the origins and how markets, supply, and demand are
shaping the futures of these crops today. On point of origin,
(01:09):
join us as we dive deep into the world of
culinary commodities. It's the Fruit Edition, and we're exploring some
of the curious conundrums that they face today. But they
(01:31):
can stay alive. The seeds stays alive while it floats,
so it floats on the seas and it sprouts on
whatever coasted lands, on tropical coasted lands on In southeastern India,
organic farmer and permaculturalist Symritate Molly started noticing that farmers
in her area, we're beginning to experiment with a new
type of crop which historically wasn't grown in the area
(01:56):
because it was at too high of an altitude. I'm
in the mountain in the Palony Hills of South India,
so it's quite high and I run out coop with
the farmers, with the local farmers in my village and
consim rates farming community. The effects of climate change over
the past few years have been immediate and apparent. Basically,
(02:19):
the mountains have been getting warmer and warmer, and so
every year the coconut kind of climbs higher and higher,
so the coconut can grow at a higher altitude. And
the local farmers in my area were noticing this. And
where it's colder now it's getting warmer, so it's easier
for a coconut to grow there. Basically, coconuts are really
(02:44):
hardy plants and they'll grow anywhere they have a temperature
of higher than twenty two degrees celsius. So the farmers
in my area were starting to experiment growing coconuts in
our area, trying to predict the future and the fact
that it's going to get warmer. So that's what made
(03:05):
me interested in researching where coconuts were from and the
kind of conditions they need to grow. So the origins
of coconut are kind of murky, and there wasn't the
(03:25):
any test that was done. It couldn't pinpoint any one origin.
There were two strains that were found. One was from
the Indian Ocean and the other was on the Pacific Ocean,
so it was really divided across two oceans, which connects
with the fact that the coconut is a seafaring fruit.
(03:46):
I think it's one of the only ones in the world.
So the coconut has been traveling on the oceans around
the world for millennia before humans have been traveling. Definitely,
and contrary to popular belief, it's we don't have colonizers
to thank for the coconuts. But yeah, so I like
(04:08):
to call it a seafood. That's interesting. So when you
say that it's a seafaring fruit, you mean that coconuts
without the help of humans, can propagate on the water.
Is that right, Yeah, they have been propagating on on water.
They can. They can stay alive. The seeds stays alive
while it floats. It also floats, so it floats on
(04:31):
the seas and it sprouts on whatever coasted lands on
tropical coasted lands on Coconuts are so unique because of
their seafaring nature. They can be found throughout the global South,
having self propagated along shorelines over thousands of years, likely
long before humans were even around. Today, they firmly planted
(04:53):
into local and regional cuisines in South Asia, making coconuts
foundational and a stable not only in diets as a
way of life in coastal India, the Philippines and Indonesia
the top producers of coconut in the world. The coconut
plant provides more than just meat, milk, and oils for
food and sustenance. So it's typically an island house would
(05:16):
have around for coconut trees and you can build your
house and make your clothes and have fuel, water, food, alcohol.
Everything started for you with those trees. So it's known
as the tree of life, and it's very easy to
have a self sustainable lifestyle with these four coconuts, so
(05:39):
it's worshiped. Basically, in the India, we use a coconut
in all our rituals. The coconut is cracked before you
start anything new, or get married or any of the
like life's big moments. So it's a symbol of fertility,
(06:00):
the womb. But it's also a symbol of your ego
as all as your head. So it's like your sacrificing
your ego. Every time you break a coconut, it signifies
it or your your head or your ego. Basically, I
sort of like that image. It's a pretty intense one.
The idea of the coconut representing your head and then
(06:22):
being machett id open to get to the flesh. That's
sort of the ultimate sacrifice. I guess, yeah it is.
It is so basically they used to sacrifice. I don't
know if you want to say this day of but
they used to sacrifice people and animals in the old days.
But instead of instead of sacrificing them, they break a coconut.
(06:43):
So the blood and the water coming out the fresh coconut,
so it looks like the head. Wow, I will never
eat another coconut without thinking about that. Um, that's that's
pretty amazing. So I want to ask you again or
go back to you know, the role of the coconuts.
(07:05):
I guess, not really the role, but like the sudden
demand over the last five years. As a consumer, it
seems to me, if I had to guess, I would
say that the trend of the health conscious types who
are drinking coconut water on a daily basis, sometimes around
(07:27):
the clock, is coconut water. What we have to blame
for this sudden spike in demand? Yeah, I think so.
I mean I was doing some research. I found that
the top players in the globle coconut water market is Vita, Coco,
Google Cola, and PepsiCo. So I mean they have huge
(07:48):
marketing apartments and budgets, so they're shifting to something I
guess that's more health conscious, but the whole system is
still the same rate, So I don't know how healthy
that actually is. We may have all noticed and prescribed
(08:15):
to the boom and foods, oils and drinks, not to
mention supplements that are derived from the coconut beyond just
coconut water. Large corporate, multinational food producers are scrambling to
keep pace with the rapidly growing demand and global taste
for all things coconut. The problem has become because prices
(08:37):
around the world have increased so much because of its
it's like trendy now, so people wanna make money off it.
Coconut is a very sensitive tree, and because of the
mono cropping, and because of the fact that they're probably
putting fertilizers and petrochemicals to help the coconut grow, the
(08:58):
land of the soil is getting depleted and the productivity
of the tree has become almost less than it was
thirty years ago. So the major problem around the world
is that the countries and plantations that have been supplying
coconut around the world are now producing less and less
(09:18):
of it, which is why the price of coconut oil
is rising as it is an almost in the past
five years wow. And so the cost of the coconut
has gone up as the levels of production have decreased.
Is that what you're saying, Yeah, yeah, the demand is
(09:41):
way higher than the supply, which means that now those
four coconuts that a family has on an island, they
would rather sell it and get money and buy those
clothes and fuel from somewhere else instead of using the
coconut they have. I mean, I'm a bit of an extremist.
There's no real solution to the food supply chain around
(10:04):
the world, and I don't believe that it's wrong for
Americans or anyone in the global not to use coconut,
But I just think that just going local is just
the easiest solution. So of course, now coconuts are not
(10:33):
seafaring anymore. They don't propagate themselves, so they're not flowing
on the sea and landing up on coursts and planting themselves.
So they're being planted in huge monocrops, plantations in the
areas where they are traditionally grown. So it's kind of
getting to the place where palm oil is. We're moving
(10:56):
a large rainforests are natural um landscape. It's to grow
coconut because of how how much money they get you
through exports. It's a twofold thing. So because of global warming,
we can grow more coconuts and higher places, and not
necessarily just by the coast, but also where they've already
(11:16):
traditionally been growing. They aren't yielding as much coconut as
they used to. Because of the way that they're being grown.
We'll be right back with wet Stone co founder Melissa
(11:38):
she him Hice. Even mal is my business partner and
(12:03):
the co founder of wet Stone. She's in and Lucia,
Spain to introduce us to the farmers and the community
that have been growing the fruit bearing trees from our
next story for many generations. How are these growers balancing
innovating while also preserving tradition and honoring origin, especially in
an industry that many think of it's just a commodity.
(12:30):
Here in the sea of trees. We're standing on soil
that is a deep brick red. It's crumbly clay like
infused with the color of rust. And when you look up,
all that meets I is this continuous canopy of leaves
that are crowning these noveley branches and tree trunks of
the olive tree. You don't have to look too closely
(12:51):
to see that each canopy is dotted with the unripe
greens and darker blacks of maturing fruit. And just to
give you an example, like one tree, one olive tree
is maybe a case of of of olive oil. Only
one tree. It's just one case bottles. That's it nine ms.
(13:12):
So it takes a lot of trees to make a
lot of olive oil. One lot is usually around on
twenty tho liters. Okay, so you need to be moving
quickly unloading. They're ali's depending on the quality of the
olive or the variety of the olive. Today, the morning
(13:33):
sky is calm, bright and luminous, while at the same
time being completely blanketed by airy and pillowy clouds. There's
a skyhike cover that is so vast and high up
in the atmosphere that makes the sprawling landscape we're standing
in feel all at once both smaller and a little
more comprehensible, but also grander and of an unimaginable scale.
(13:57):
We're here amongst the olive groves of Hlio is STEPA
with Kyle Davis, an expert manager and an expert in
regional olive oil production. We're harvesting olives here in Andalusia,
and we're meeting one of the five thousand farmers that
Kyle works with. It's almost mid day, but it still
feels like dawn is breaking and the day is not
(14:18):
quite fully emotion But then stillness is abruptly broken by
the sounds of an early harvest in full swing. So
they'll grab the tree with the tractor on the with
like kind of a fork on the bottom, and then
(14:38):
they open up this batman upside down umbrella underneath the tree.
They shake the tree with that fork. All of the
olives fall into the umbrella and go right into a hopper.
Once the oppera is full, the hopper dumps it into
a trailer. Once the trailer full, the trailer goes to
the mill. One farmer brings a trailer to the mill.
(15:03):
He's going to first check in with a computer screen
and he's gonna scan his ID badge. His ID badge
is going to pull up a plot of his land,
and he's gonna indicate on the computer exactly where he
just harvested. Traceability starting to be not just the farmer,
but the actual plot of land that he just harvested from.
(15:25):
The day drop the alive the olives like we saw
being collector's gonna happital piece of sticks. This ability to
trace fruit back to the original plot of land it
was harvested from is one of the factors that makes
old a step as so unique. The farmers details on
(15:45):
its harvest of the day are one of numerable inputs
and bits of data that Old As Stepa's oils mills
carefully monitor each step of the process, from when an
olive arrives at the mill to the process of cold
extraction of oil, to testing for different physical and chemical properties,
storage and bottling, makes the process here perhaps one of
(16:08):
the most advanced in the world. The olive groves at
ol Stepa, like the one being harvested here today, have
an ancient history dating back more than two millennia, but
it is in more recent history. Over the last half century,
(16:30):
the agriculture and the region has been revolutionized and technologized,
allowing producers like ol Stepa to access the most up
to date oil extraction machinery. At the heart of ole
As Stepa's business lies an approach to all of farming
that is very different from the models we see around
the world. The cooperative model in Spain is pretty unique.
(16:51):
I don't think that there's any other country in the
world that's really has as many cooperatives as Spain and
really has such a country that's so open to cooperation,
not just on like an agricultural level, but on a
on a citizen level. I mean there's I mean people
here in Spain, I would say, you know, two thirds
of the population at one time or another has been
(17:13):
a volunteer or collaborates with NGO. Spain is a very
is a society that likes to cooperate and and assets.
They have a lot of cooperatives and that's very different
than countries like Italy, for example, in terms of olive oil,
and there's no there's no there's no real olive oil
cooperatives in Italy. There's a lot of small farmers or
(17:37):
medium sized farmers that own their own small mill. But
the cool thing about having an olive oil cooperative is
is that you join the efforts of a large amount
of people who individually wouldn't be able to afford an
olive mail and you all milt together and you're all
kind of in the same boat, and you all kind
of follow the same philosophy. And the cool thing with
(17:58):
ely a stepans like our flow has been quality driven,
and that's not necessarily the cooperative model. Across Spain. In
terms of olive oil, we have kind of everything. We
have small family farmers that might own only you know,
maybe fifteen or twenty actors, and then we have larger
farmers who have been we have inherited land over various
(18:22):
generations and in our farming actors, so we have kind
of have everything in between. But they're all in the
same boat, you know, and they're all fighting for excellence. Okay.
So we pay our farmers much more money for the
per kilo of olive than any other cooperative in Spain,
and that's undisputable. As Kyle explains, their concept is really simple.
(18:53):
Olio a step overpaced farmers for early harvest oil, so
that growers are incentivised to get olives off the tree
and into the mill as quickly as possible. And why
is it that more unripe and greener olives produce the
higher quality oil. And the most important factor, I'd say
there is the time of harvest. And so as the
(19:15):
olive tree produces a flower and the flower gets pollinated
and the olive sprouts on the branch, it starts off green, okay,
and it it's green. And as it growing and it's green,
and it makes it reaches its maximum size. And as
it reaches its maximum size, and as it starts to
mature more, it turns from green to purple to black, okay,
(19:39):
and then it falls off the tree. The maximum fat
content of the olive is going to be when it's
almost ready to fall off the tree. But the amount
of polyphenols, the amount of fruit that you're going to
get out of that olive are going to be lower
than if you were to harvest it earlier. And so
that's what you see early harvest and earlier, you know,
(20:02):
on bottles, etcetera. Harvesting early, you get less fat, you
get less oil out of the olive, but the quality
is a lot higher. So what exactly are these polyphenols
that Kyle is talking about. They are the micro nutrients
that give olive oils it's so called superpowers. Green olives especially,
(20:23):
are rich and polyphenols that we can only get through
certain plant based foods, and together with other dietary reducing
agents such as vitamin C and vitamin E, are referred
to as antioxidants. Higher polyphenols also increase the shelf life
of olive oil, but are a key factor in contributing
to the most defining and desired flavor factor of high
(20:44):
quality olive oil. Bitterness, by the way, the one and
only basic flavor in oil is bitterness. The rest is
have to taste like all the aromas and tag tile sensations,
(21:08):
like the stringency and dry our mouth and spiciness that
we can feel anywhere in the mouth or maybe in
the throat. Even this is Alfonso Fernandez something in a
kind of joke. Away, I can say that I'm a
priest of olive oil, so I I make believers. I
want to tell too, for the people to know what
(21:28):
is the truth about olive oil and everything that they
can learn and enjoy and how to use and how
good is for the health everything, because I hate national
listm on on olive oil, even if I'm lucky enough
to be they're talking about olive oil or from a
spin all over the world. But I mean many of
(21:48):
the love trees that we have, they have been with
us longer than many borders that we have to We
have folive trees with more than two thousand, three thousand
years old. Alfonso has devoted himself to sharing knowledge and
(22:09):
understanding of olive oil, it's history and its cultural heritage
here in Spain and beyond the borders that define his country.
He's what's called an oleologist, the name for an olive
oil tasting expert. Importantly, Alfonso emphasizes that what makes olive
oil really unique is not just that it's an ancient product,
but that it's a completely all natural product. After all,
(22:32):
Spanish aciet for oil is derived from Arabic azayet or
olive juice. It's unlike many of our cooking oils today
that go through different refining processes. But the main thing
that nothing that everybody will understand quite easily. Extraorginally oil
is real food. So he's the fatty juice of a fruit.
(22:54):
So all the extracted by mechanical means, so the end
it's like a juice, but releasing the water. I mean
it has natural polyphonos that is a natural antioxidant. The
people that they don't like the bitterness, the bitterness is
one of the best antioxidants that we have. And these
are the kind of things that the oly world will
bring to us that not many other facts that is
(23:18):
going to give us. His family has been farming in
the northern region of Andalusia for generations. As you know,
I'm I'm part of olive wall farmers family. My brothers
are still around the family farming with olive trees. My
uncle's my grandpa. He got retired with seventy two years
old from the farming. So I've being devoted to this
for a long long time since fift generations far Us
(23:41):
I know and for me, olive all is a big,
big passion. We have to we have to give them
much more than we usually give because some people they
consider this a commodity. And I think that they've been
with us for so long time that we need to
give respect. That is what they've given to us. The
other world. Yes, it's in I. I come from my
(24:01):
small village that is called Montea's almost in the center
of Andalusia geographical center, and Aluthia is like if you're
bend over Portugal, but to cross over Spain. And it's
the largest production area in the world. When I say
the largest, is the only my region or Spain, but
I think that is the largest. The olive crops, the
(24:22):
olive trees planted in Spain is the largest artificial olive
grove olive forest in the world. That's my thought. Alfonso's
family farm is located in Cordoba, the province of Andalusia,
which along with neighboring province Jayenne, produces thirty of the
entire world's production. That's a lot of olive trees. And
(24:44):
Alusia is the most populous area in Spain and has
a temperate climate with hot, dry summers and mild winters
that has made it an agricultural haven for thousands of years.
No one knows exactly where the olive tree originated, but
has been naturalized to the Mediterranean basin, including here in
Andy Lucia and across Spain, flourishing on uncultivated lands for millennia.
(25:09):
Farmers over generations have bred and propagated plants for culinary uses,
developing cultivars that flourish in their local to war, which
has led to the thousands of different varietals and the
world see today. In Spain alone, there are actually hundreds
of types of olives. We have two farms. One is
in here in Montalvande, Corlova, and the other one is
(25:32):
very close to Cordova, to Cordova village. It is not
a big surface. In total is about sixty actors more
or less. And yes, and we treated with a lot
of respect with pequala and Arbkina varieties, and pequala has
been with us for centuries here and pequal is one
of the varieties. We have been explained in Spain more
than more than three hundred varieties all over the world
(25:54):
more than one thousand, and each variety is like a
different flavor profile and the friend behavior. It's like we're
talking about wine, like different types of grapes. The flavors
and characteristics of each olive as well as its appearance
is completely unique. Alfonso walks us through how to taste
olive oil and how you might process the flavors. Unlike wine,
(26:21):
extra virgin olive oil is the only food product that
has to undergo a tasting test, highly systemic and tightly
controlled panel in order to be classified or named as
extra virgin olive oil, which is part of what Alfonso does.
Something that's important to mention about Alfonso is that he's
not just an oleologist, He's also a wine teaster. In Spain.
(26:42):
I have to tell you that I'm not only a
olive oid taster, I am also wine taster. Um. I'm
in a panel test of three determinations of origin here
in Spain. I have a w c T three level
three cores already passed, and so I know what is
to taste wine and then now what is to is
the olive oil. And it's not better or worst. I
(27:04):
mean you have less steps on tasting olive oil, but
you need to know how to taste the olive oil.
And I want to make it very simple and and
you can. You can think about tasting olive oil like
dancing the bowls. You know that abowts is one to three, one,
two threes every every time every time they sends steps,
(27:26):
So tasting olivel is basically the same. So first step
is the intensity of roma. We call that fruitness can
be robust, medium or low. Then we have the second
one that is what type of roma we are getting
out of that olivel. And that is the main thing
because it has to remind us always too alive things
(27:51):
on the nature. So an extrovergin only oil has to
remind us always to something that is alive and fresh.
If it's musty, if it's fermented, if it's run seed,
if it's it's not going to be a good property
for the extra regin level. And then the third step
is when you put in your mouth, and that is
quite relevant because they have to taste for human is
(28:13):
quite quite important. Something really important is that we have.
We need to salibrate properly in the mouth. When we
taste olible, we just take a little zip, not that
much so that one we salibrate, we motion it. We
make a kind of like when you're tasting wine, you
inhale summer. In the olive oil, we do the same
(28:34):
but a little bit more sharply, let's say a little
bit more aggressive. But if you're not used to do that,
we make a kind of noise. I don't know if
the people will be able to recognize it on the podcast,
but it's going to be something like that. Can I
do it? Yes, it's a kind of zip's it's like
you in here somewhere. And if you don't know how
to do that, because the problem of that is that
(28:54):
you have to cut quite aggressively. It just tumble it
down with your tongue and keep the olivel in your
mouth about thirty seconds or forty five seconds and enjoyed,
enjoy it, and then you'll solow it up. And you
know what happens if you solow up too quickly, that
is going to have much more spiciness than what it
really has. And people is quite sensitive to a spineness
(29:22):
along with the flavor ideas of grain and of nature
and life and of spiciness. One flavor profile that we
come back to you is a taste of bitterness. This
is an olive oil flavor that some might find unfamiliar,
perhaps stark, but for olive oil, it's actually a defining characteristic.
This bitterness is an indication of a high level of polyphenols,
(29:45):
specifically flavoroid polyphenols that give us this taste. In fact,
the absence of bitterness in olive oil is what defines
it to be a sweet olive oil. Yes, it is
like in wine. They have the they have the Channin's
is exactly the same one that we have in the
olivel that is making that bitterness, and the bitterness comes
(30:07):
from the variety. Not every oil has bitterness. When there's
no bitterness on the olivel, we call it, we name
it as a sweet olive oild. That for the people
that is not used to that bitterness and they don't
know how to play with that on on the kitchen,
they can use a variety that we call sweet so
(30:28):
they don't have that kind of bitterness that they don't like.
And they don't like because it's not because they don't like.
They don't like because they don't expect it from the fact.
While I have a nice story because my my grandpa
he used to name from i'm inni montal one. He
used to name the type of olive oils extraorgin oi
oils like two ones. It's like we have white wine
(30:50):
and red wine. He used to name it like white
oil and black oil. The main two varieties in my
area are ochilaka that means wide leaf and pequal. Piqual
comes from the peak at the ends shape of the olive.
And he used to name the biguel like black olive
(31:11):
olive oil and the one from ahelanka the white olive wild.
And it's because the piqua was deepest and more robust
extorginally oil, and the ahrilanka is more has less bitterness
and less stringency, let's say. And it's more aromatic, or
usually it's more aromatic than pequal. Now with the state
(31:32):
of the art technology that we have, we can get
everything out of our knowlive to give plenty of a
Roman flavor. So the pequal is like rubbust high intensity aroma.
Tomato leaves is a little bit of green grass, olive
olive leaves are romans and it's absolutely wonderful. I love it.
(31:53):
I can't think about cooking without piqua at all. And
(32:15):
there are alan see okay, I would like to show
you a very good example to illustrate what I'm saying.
You're going to see. The Olioteca is there is the
name that we have given to this special place. Is
something unique in the world. We have a justing in
(32:38):
in front of the building, a very big collection. It's
something unique and we have more than one hundred and
fifty varieties comporting countries. Very is already black. But I'm
standing in the world's only library for olive trees. The
(33:00):
Oleo Teca, founded to preserve and study the bio diversity
within the olive family. Honest Sanchez is an educator and
coordinator at the Juana Amone Gillon Foundation, which focuses on
breaking the rural sector and the olive farming in Spain
closer to the public. Since late eighties, while the region's
(33:22):
cultivation of olive trees intensified, leading to common mass production
practices like mono cropping that have eliminated some of the
diversity of the olives being farmed. The Foundation has been
growing the varietals and its oleo teca. Many of these
trees here are more than thirty years old, while some
of the newer transplants are just two or three years
(33:44):
old and incredibly already bearing fruit for study. It's like
a garden, okay. They We produce olive oil with each
variety every year from like some for example, we have
brought varieties from Israel or maybe Go Mexico, Albania, Syria
(34:04):
or Italy. So we study each variety. How is the niman,
how is is the best way to produce each olive
oil um, how it grows in our in our land,
dying in our property, and how is the evolution To
(34:29):
study in bio diversity seeks to understand not only the
different traits and benefits unique to each type of olive,
how local t is expressed, and how different olives vary
when grown in different regions of the world. The Foundation
partners with local universities and research groups understand traits such
as physiochemical properties and their correlation to disease prevention, and
(34:54):
physical properties of the plant like heartiness or resistance to disease.
We'll come back to the importance this work later, but
for now, let's wander through the growth on it to
meet some of the unique varieties from the olives being
cataloged and preserved here. Although all of these trees have
similar structural characteristics, a beautiful variety of colors, shapes, textures,
(35:17):
and sizes of fruit showcase the level of diversity possible
even within a closely related group of species. There's so
many characteristics that seem to be different. Some fruit or
small and round couple of shapes, while others, like the
Sartha espana, a variety a typical to Spain is wrinkled
(35:37):
and almost unidentifiable as an olive our other varieties. For example,
we have a god it's a typical variety from a
Spain is a very big one. But you can think,
or you may think that the quality is going to
be better because it's bigger, that the fruit is bigger,
or it's going to be to produce a out more
(36:00):
quantity because it's bigger down for example are beginna. But
it isn't necessary to be like this, because you can
have a very high quality oil from the variety Abkina,
and the goal isn't used to produce oils just for
(36:20):
for it. The Godals Sivianna is a beloved Spanish cultivar
and the biggest variety of olive by a large margin.
It's got a huge pit that's proportionately as large as
its pulpy flesh. Because it's low in oil content, this
variety is commonly seen as the teple olive and not
used for production. The Cora nick olive originating from the Peloponnese,
(36:46):
looks actually opposite or at all. It yields super high
intensity fruit that yields lots of oil. It's constant yields
of fruity balanced oil have also made it one of
the most popular olives ground an injuries. And you see
for example a colneg it's a variety from grief that
(37:07):
have a very good property and the flavor is a
very interesting a variety to study and maybe to develop
in the future, we don't know. And we have a
very particular one that it for example, as a blancot
(37:28):
is the wild olive Greek, but they are blanco. White
is very particular because the old when the time of
the harvest, thing arrives thanks to white instead to to black.
So it's a very special one. The oil isn't so good,
(37:53):
but it's a very particular old to show people that
hams to to affend a good man to visit as
to explain how important and how it divers and how
big is the olive oil sector. That's the reason of
our foundation to explain all the people, to educate people
(38:14):
and to to show them going for a walk. It's
the easier way to explain them how important is the
olivel sector for Spain and for our culture. The foundation
promotes olive oil culture. Okay, nowadays we are using many
innovative techniques, maybe in the development of new businesses in
(38:39):
in many companies or many sectors, but especially in the
olive oil sector. We try to balance the use of
the innovation with the tradition in Spain. Spain is the
main producer of olive oil in the world, that's a fact.
And the eighty percent of the olive oil that is
(39:01):
produced by Spain is from Andalusia. It's a very important
point because two hundred and fifty families of Andalusia depends
on the olive oil sector. So we have to explain
how important is the oil, the olive oil in our culture,
in our society. Okay, how important is for our history,
(39:27):
for our tradition. It's anna details. Olive oil is an
ancient pillar to diets here. The average Spaniard consumes one
leader per month, and this integral role in diet is
true to cultures throughout the Mediterranean basin. Along with the
growing global taste for olive oil and the pressure to
produce more is unquestionable. Growths here in Andalusia today are
(39:50):
dominated by piqual Oli blanca and Urbikina, and Pequal specifically
has become the world's most prolific olive account for half
of Spain's olive trees. These varietals hardiness, high oil content
and high polyphenal content have made them favorites for intensive
(40:10):
mass growing. The story sounds familiar because it is farming
in the twenty one century around the world have brought
to question many practices about how highly demanded crops are
produced and what that means for farmers, farm workers, local
agriculture and economies, and for the health of the land
(40:31):
and environment in the face of not just a changing climate.
In a changing environment, there's also international tree attentions to consider,
which we want covered today. The end of the day,
one of the most overwhelming forces that farmers are beholden
to is simply the supply and demands of a commoditized market.
(40:51):
And it's become especially problematic for our farmers in Spain
since the price has fallen below the cost of production
in the past couple of years. Because Kyle Davis, our
first expert from Olio as stepa co Op at least
sums it up. I definitely feel for a lot of
the small farmers who you know, their their entire livelihood
(41:13):
depends on the crop and and on prices being at
reasonable levels. But the fact of the matter is is
that there's been a lot of olive trees planted over,
you know, throughout Spain over the last five ten years,
and there was a really large amount of production um
(41:35):
in terms of the two thousand and nineteen twenty harvest,
and there was a lot of carryover as well after
a record harvest in the two thousand and eighteen nineteen harvest,
And so there's just a lot of olive oil in
the market, and it just kind of comes down to
supply and demand, and so you know, when there's a
(41:55):
lot of oil, people dropped their prices and and and
so on. Fortunately, we're in a situation where the current
prices for all three categories Lampante, virgin and virgin extra
are pretty much below cost of production, which is which
is tough for the farmers for sure. While co op
(42:22):
structures and pricing practices like that of Oleo Steppa may
help protect farmers from some of the volatility we see
in global supply and demand, perhaps these co op models
can be a part of the solution for the future,
but it's yet to be told whether these incentives we
enough to help maintain the livelihood of farmers in the industry,
(42:44):
Like sym rates farming community in India who have become
interested in coconut farming as a new cash crop. Kyle
describes that for small farmers that are hurting now, we
see groves and parcels of land that were historically producing
all of are being replanted for crops that are paying
more now, like almonds. This feels like a complex conundrum
(43:08):
because at the end of the day, it brings to
question our entire global food system, and there's not an
easy way to understand, let alone solve for the complexities
that that may brain. So where do we go from here?
My answer for consumers can be in making informed voting
decisions based on what we purchase. At the end of
(43:31):
the day, I think it's most important to start from
an understanding of origin and where the things we eat
and drink come from. Supporting small farmers and producers who
are socially environmentally responsible is also a great starting point
for olive oil. Our friends in Spain encourage us to
(43:52):
understand and support biodiversity within olives. Supporting the farmers like
our friends in Spain that are preserving this richness and
plants and crops from around the world can help honor
cultural origins, but can also hold a key to resilience
in solving conundrums. In our edible Commodities features h h
(44:21):
h h h h h h h h h h
h h h h h h h h h. Thank
you to our guests on this episode, farmer Symritt, Molly
Kyle Davis of Oleo Steppa, oleologist Alfonso Fernandez, and an
(44:45):
A Sanchez of the Wan ramon Gian Foundation. To learn more,
check out our website www. Wet Stone magazine dot com,
including for tips on how to taste and select olive
oil and how to just generally better appreciate the global
diversity of unique cultivars h m hm, h m hmm.
Host
Stephen Satterfield
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