READ THIS: EXTRA VIRGINITY THE SUBLIME AND SCANDALOUS WORLD OF OLIVE OIL By Tom Mueller Our Coverage Sponsored by Fresh Origins

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Many people use Olive Oil daily, and just take it for granted. After you read this review and ultimately read the book Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, you will never think about Olive Oil the same way again. One of the most ancient components of both a diet and a lifestyle (see page 15 where Odysseus is quoted), Olive Oil has ancient roots and a spotty past that no one until Tom Mueller unearthed quite this way to our knowledge.  Olive Oil helped to fund the rise of many civilizations along the Mediterranean, and has also helped preserve their histories. We have reviewed a myriad of restaurants and culinary products, however, none has cultivated a level of scandal in our eyes that we've been made aware of until we popped open this hot number.   You're going to learn everything you ever wanted to know about Olive Oil as a product and as an industry.

Why should you care?  We will quote from page 103: "A number of substances in olive oil's polar fraction shields us from the far-reaching damage done by an essential part of our own body chemistry: oxygen.  One of nature's great ironies is that this element, vital to creating and nourishing life, also accelerates aging and death.  Oxygen is required for cell metabolism but produces certain highly reactive byproducts called free radicals, which damage cells, combine with LDL ('bad' cholesterol) to sludge up artery walls, degrade DNA strands leading to malignancies, and break down proteins in the body.  By the age of eighty, the proteins in an average person's body are 80 percent oxidized; in other words, is making us go bad."

Do you even know what Extra Virgin Olive Oil is?  We'll enlighten you.  On November 13, 1960, the European Parliament passed a law on olive oil quality: extra virgin oil must be made solely by mechanical methods without chemical treatment and set a number of chemical requirements, including a maximum of 1 percent free acidity.

 The prologue begins with olive oil reaching 28 degrees Celcius (the temperature at which its aromatic substances become volatile) with eight tasters in Milan. The work ends with an appendix of how you should choose good oil. But the real story is inbetween.  You'll learn a lot of what you don't know now, and you're going to care about it too-some feel the United States is the best place on earth to sell adulterated oil.  If you think you are really buying olive oil from Italy at a rock-bottom price, that said bottle in your hand might not really be from Italy: an estimated 60 billion Euro annually is the revenue for fraudulent Italian foods (p. 45).  Read on...there is even a chapter on Oil Bosses!

We smell and taste a lot at Whom You Know, from perfume to wine to of course, Olive Oil.  We'd agree with Mueller's statement on page 4 that "Tasting these oils was like strolling through a botanic garden, touring a perfume factory, and taking a long drive through spring meadows with the windows down, all at the same time- equal parts scientific analysis and lingering, attentive hedonism."  Oh, and did we mention the prose in this book is fantastic too?

The history alone in this book is stellar, and Peachy Deegan ought to know as she has a BA in History from the #1 Hockey School in the NCAA which is Boston College of course (they won the national championship fewer than 48 hours ago...) The images add quite a lot too: the first shows a reconstruction of the seventh century BC (a different BC!) oil mill discovered at Ekron, Israel, which could produce about 500,000 liters of olive oil a year.

One character you'll instantly meet early on is Flavio Zarmella, the Milanese businessman and president of Mastri Oleari.  He says: "...Real extra virgin olive oil contains powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatories which help prevent degenerative conditions-like my cancer...Bad oil isn't just a deception, it's a crime against public health." (p. 7)  Another is Alissa Mattei-one of the world's leading oil chemists.  As you see, this book is not tabloid fodder-it is credentialed with experts.

How is olive oil made?  The De Carlo family was among the first oil-makers in Italy to use a centrifuge to extract oil from their olives, while other producers used hydraulic presses that were once employed by the Romans.

How is olive oil messed with?  Scams include mixing in vegetable oil, making up names of producers, and even go to the lengths of mixing up fake oils in labs (p. 55).  Did you know in 1981 over 20,000 people were poisoned by fake olive oil?  800 people died!  "Fake olive oil had caused thirty times more deaths than methanol, yet the oil business remained as slippery as ever." (p.110)  As the distance between producer and consumer grew, fraud became easier to commit.  Do not miss the lawsuit and the lack of press received on page 130.

From page to page you'll become continually enlightened...did you know they even make Olive Oil in Australia!?  We know now.  And you know we've told you it is made in California.  It's not all about only the Mediterranean anymore.

Whom You Know Highly Recommends Extra Virginity by Tom Mueller.  Open your eyes and read this before the next time you open your mouth...

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America is the third-largest olive oil consumer in the world, but that familiar glass bottle that’s a staple of so many U.S. pantries holds a shocking secret. Odds are that most, if not all, of the oils marked “extra virgin” in your local supermarket are imposters, harlots masquerading in virgins’ clothing. 

As a consequence, consumers are robbed of the health benefits associated with high-quality, antioxidant-rich real extra virgin olive oil, which is the active ingredient of the Mediterranean diet, and exhibits remarkable therapeutic properties against conditions such as cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s. How do we differentiate between the authentic and the phony? And how could this kind of food fraud become so rampant?

Offering a revelatory look at the rich, fascinating, and often contradictory world of olive oil production and consumption, Tom Mueller investigates the enigmatic substance and the billion dollar global industry that produces it in EXTRA VIRGINITY: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil [W. W. Norton & Company; December 5, 2011; $25.95 hardcover]. 

A timely, masterfully executed exploration, mingling history, science, and exposé, that expands on Mueller’s lauded August 2007 New Yorker article, “Letter from Italy: Slippery Business,” this book is a riveting portrait of the traditions, politics, geography, current affairs, key figures, and culinary movements that shape today’s olive oil industry. Mueller introduces honest artisan producers, from Australia to Italy to California, who create magnificent oils but struggle to make ends meet in a market awash with fraud; criminals making millions off fraudulent oils; the contemporary scientists investigating oil’s diverse chemical properties and health benefits; and a fascinating cast of chefs, food activists, bureaucrats, and priests, all of whom are obsessed with olive oil.

Among myriad eye-opening stories, EXTRA VIRGINITY reveals that records of inspections against fraudulent practice in the olive oil trade date back to as early as the twenty-fourth century BC. The enduring presence of trickery in olive oil production attests to this commodity’s extraordinary importance to humanity. Throughout history, olive oil has been used not just as a foodstuff but also in religious rituals, cosmetics and perfumes, aphrodisiacs and sexual aids; and as fuel, balm, and spiritual essence, celebrated by the likes of Sophocles and Martial, Jesus and Muhammad.

Along with its countless applications, olive oil also has a rigorous quality standard. It is the only product for which a taste test is actually part of the legal definition of authenticity and quality. Mueller takes the reader to a modern laboratory, where a trained team olive oil tasters slurp away, looking for official taste flaws, such as musty, fusty, rancid, and grubby, and describing positive attributes of well-crafted oils, such as artichoke, fresh-cut grass, green tomato, or kiwi. 

Yet despite the rigor and meticulousness of this rating system, there is still no assurance that the sticker on any given bottle of olive oil reflects the content. In fact, as Mueller shows, fake oil is just the glistening tip of a vast iceberg of food fraud. The enormous popularity of the “Made in Italy” label worldwide makes it an appetizing target for food fraudsters, who earn an estimated $80 billion a year selling counterfeit or adulterated faux-Italian foods. Since price competition in the food industry is fierce, companies are often willing to buy their raw materials from dubious sources, even at prices so low they suggest that the foods are fake. Added to this are the challenges inherent in testing and policing a massive, far-flung, internationalized food and agriculture sector rife with companies whose chemical knowledge and expertise far outstrip those of the investigators. In a market such as this, the honest olive oil producer faces almost insurmountable challenges. According to Mueller, unless something is done within the next few years to halt olive oil crime, the ancient and storied tradition of olive oil manufacturing will come to an end.

Luckily, awareness is spreading and a revolution is afoot in olive oil quality, particularly in the New World, where skilled artisanal growers and oil competitions abound. For readers interested in joining the movement, EXTRA VIRGINITY offers a wealth of resources, including: 

· A glossary of olive oil terminology

· Advice on choosing a quality oil

· Tips on which oil types to pair with different foods

· An extensive list of Web sites for further information

· ExtraVirginity.com as the go-to place on the web for olive oil news and a regularly-updated guide to the best oils from each year’s harvest 

Both a terrifying window onto the effects of globalization of the food industry in an age of lax regulation, and an eye-opening call to action, EXTRA VIRGINITY proves that becoming more educated about quality extra virgin olive oil can be one of life’s singular pleasures. 

About the Author:

Tom Mueller writes for The New Yorker and other publications. He lives in a medieval stone farmhouse surrounded by olive groves in the Ligurian countryside outside of Genoa, Italy. 

Title: EXTRA VIRGINITY: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil

Author: Tom Mueller

Pub Date: December 5, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-393-07021-7

Price: $25.95 hardcover