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<pre>Sadoun,

On Tue, 10 Aug 1999, Sadoun wrote:

> Peter, since you have visited some of these old mills with the traditional
> method I am sure you have difference the difference in the cleanliness of
> the mill itself compared to the new mills. What guaranties do you have that
> the mats were cleaned properly after each use? What about the wells they
> keep the oil in, are they perfectly clean? In many of these mills they
> don't even have a separator, so they keep the oil in settling tanks to
> separate the vegetable water.

I would agree that at a number of the traditional mills the cleanliness
isn't the best it could be. However, being spotlessly clean doesn't
necessarily mean that you put out a "better" product. I've seen a number
of installations (apple cider mills in Michigan for example) that put out
a superior product without being absolutely spotless (the same for some
oil mills). Compared to the traditional mills, I find the oil from modern
mills to be somewhat bland and tasteless.

Further, people pressing at the traditional mills seem to pay more
attention to the olives being pressed (this is just my research
observation). At the modern mills I saw different varieties of olives
being pressed together, while at the traditional mills, people seemed to
press a particular variety without mixing them.

Also, certain traditional practices occur at the traditional mills that
are not (and can't due to time constraints) done at modern mills. I've
been told of people boiling the olives prior to pressing, drying the
olives prior to pressing, boiling and drying, and even smoking the olives
prior to pressing. Each of these methods imparts a particular flavor to
the oil. Such traditional methods are disappearing along with the
traditional mills.

> As you can see I am a full supporter of the new methods because of the
> overall advantages. Mill owners in Jordan compete in providing the best
> quality service at reasonable cost and fast production rate.

I have to disagree with you. While I use modern produced oil for cooking,
baking, etc., if I'm eating something where I want to taste the flavor of
the oil, like a salad or drizzled over pasta, I use traditionally produced
oil. I'm not put off by the fact that it may not have been produced in an
totally spotless mill. Hopefully, some traditional mills will survive the
"McDonald's-izing" trend of faster and more modern being "better."

Peter Warnock



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