Olive oil in my blood

THE FOOD CLUB

The math took me aback. The human population of Spain is 30 million while the olive tree population of the country is more than ten times that: it stands at 308 million.

On a recent trip to Andalusia, a large district in south-west Spain, our group of nine journalists from the non-olive-growing world was never far from the sight of the grey-green leaves of the tree that usually grows along hillsides.

By the second day of the trip, the motley lot of writers from India, China, the US, Canada, Serbia and Russia could tell, with the air of veteran Mediterranean farmers, whether the olive garden was new or old (very old ones had three tree trunks planted in the same cavity; 40-year-old plantations had trees set too close together for tractors to pass between rows).

By day five, table olives, single origin olive oils and olive trees had become part of everyone's bloodstream, so that one night in Madrid, away from olive farms, had us all suffering from withdrawal symptoms. On day seven, on our way to Toledo, the sight of an olive grove had us all burst into applause: we had arrived back home.

One thing was clear though: you can plunge eyebrow-deep into the world of olives and not claim mastery over the subject even after a lifetime. The commonest Spanish olive variety was the intensely fruity, somewhat pungent, picual. Most Spanish blends of extra virgin olive oil (the only kind we got to try) had a pungency owing to picual.

There were single varietals as well "" common as crows in south-west Spain but I daresay, rare in the non olive-growing areas of the world "" picudo, cornicabra, hojiblanca and dozens of others. Go to another country, however, and you will have a slew of other varieties there.

There are approximately 47 olive-growing countries around the Mediterranean, including Tunisia, Morocco and Syria, where soil and water conditions, climate and olive varietals differ wildly.

Therefore, the most you can hope for is to be able to tell, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, the olive type in a single-variety oil. We tasted quite a few "" except the elusive empeltre because our trip was to Andalusia and empeltre is native to Aragon in the north-east.

The single defining impression of that heady, fun-filled week is that the local cuisine is but a platform to showcase the queen of the may: olives and olive oil in all its splendour.

Will it work in other contexts, with other cuisines besides Mediterranean? Within limits, it will. You can drench bread, dress your salads, drizzle it over grills or barbecues, make Spanish omelettes or even dip chapatis in it. Spice is the Indian queen of the may: my guess is that in a battle of the two queens "" olive oil and spices, one will have to take a back-seat.

(marryamhreshii@ yahoo.co.in)