Name: Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil
Rating: 3 (8 reviews)
ISBN: 9780393070217

Tom Mueller

Expanding on his article in The New Yorker an olive oil expert uncovers corruption in the food industry, from ancient times to the present, and describes the lax rules that permit fake and even toxic foods into the United States.

Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil

Patrick Book

This is extremely remarkable. Reminds me of the book “Salt,” which seems appropriate.

Sarah Sammis

Extra Virginity by Tom Mueller starts with the fact that not all "extra virgin" labeled olive oils actually are. From there it goes on to explore the business, history, culture and mystique of olive oil. According to the UC Davis report from July 2010, "69 percent of imported olive oil samples and 10 percent of California olive oil samples labeled as extra virgin oil failed to meet the IOC/USDA sensory (organoleptic) standards for extra virgin olive oil." Living in California, where 90% of our domestic produced olive oil does pass the test, my reaction to the book is, understandably somewhat jaded.

Mueller's book when speaking of the historical aspects of olive oil is a fascinating page turner. The olive groves and olive oil has been a part of Italy all the way back to the Roman empire. He includes discussions of literary texts, like the Odyssey, where he asks why is it that the olive tree on the hill is what signals home to Homer? To that he answers with his own experience of living in Italy and learning the landscape by the olive trees.

The modern day olive oil industry, especially the family run farms, are suffering. Mueller points to two culprits who are destroying it: distributers watering down quality oil with inferior oil and California's wine industry influenced techniques to increase the harvest and yield of quality oil.

Curious about that claim, I looked at the numbers of California olive oil production. As of 2004, it accounted for less than one percent of total U.S. consumption. Most of the olive oil consumed in the United States is imported. Spain and Italy make up 75 percent of the world production. So while California is making the most of its acreage to produce oil, most of it is consumed domestically and most of that consumption stays within the state.

Extra Virginity is still worth a read for any foodies or anyone interested in a very focused piece of Italian history and culture. There are tips in the endnotes for selecting quality oils and for recognizing a quality oil.

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Nick Gracilla

In the tradition of some tremendous single-topic culinary writing — Cod, Salt — Mueller dives into the world of olive oil. It is a story of scandal, structural fraud, lies, and billions of dollars on the international market, as well as small producers, family farmers, and traditions that reach back millennia. 

Oddly, in 1981, eight hundred people died from fraudulent oil in Spain: EVOO cut with industrial-grade canola oil, which contains a neurotoxin. Despite this, the olive oil industry continues without the controls and oversight the wine industry has — which underwent a massive shakeup after a 1986 scandal that killed 26 and blinded 20 due to cutting wine with methanol. 

The olive oil industry is rife with counterfeits, mislabeling, and price profiteering — all while the products you buy at the supermarket have price point pressures driving them ever further down in quality. Certainly, nothing we purchase in the states in a massive can for 15 bucks is "extra virgin olive oil" despite its labeling. 

Moreover, this highest quality label — made from chemically untreated, perfectly ripe olives, processed within 24 hours of picking, subjected to 20+ tests, tasted for defects — renders a unique product that typical palettes wouldn't recognize: peppery, sharp, fruity, bitter. A set of flavors utterly absent in our "light," "mild" supermarket finds. 

Meanwhile, breakout producers try to do things right — from family tradition, a sense of culinary value, or a supplement to other income. To try "real" EVOO, it seems, the only chances we have are to visit them directly or buy from an oil shop dedicated to quality and education. 

I recommend this book for anyone interested in global economics, food history, agriculture, and scandal.

"[Mueller reveals] the brazen fraud in the olive oil industry and [teaches] readers how to sniff out the good stuff." —Dwight Garner, New York Times For millennia, fresh olive oil has been one of life’s necessities—not just as food but also as medicine, a beauty aid, and a vital element of religious rituals. But this symbol of purity has become deeply corrupt. A superbly crafted combination of cultural history and food manifesto, Extra Virginity takes us on a journey through the world of olive oil, opening our eyes to olive oil’s rich past as well as to the fierce contemporary struggle between oil fraudsters of the globalized food industry and artisan producers whose oil truly deserves the name "extra virgin."

Josefine

Well I don’t buy the cheapest olive oil anymore. 

Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil

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