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<pre>Hi Phil,
my experience is that there is quite a good awareness in our region (Europe)
about the quality of good oliveoil, although there ist still a lack of
knowledge. It's up to the olive farmers (not the oil industry) to fill this
gap.
People come here to us from Germay to buy our olive oil and they always ask
if is extra vergine, pressed cold, first pressing. I try to teach them about
the different qualities and that extra vergine is a condition for good oil,
but not a sufficient condition. Nearly nobody knows that extra vergine is
always 'first' pressing (anyway never seen anybody who presses twice: the
second extraction, if any, is always chemical) , that 'pressed cold' doesn't
mean anything because there is no legal or general definition of what this
means. 'Pure' says only that there are no other oils in it, but if there are
no laws that protect this label, you cannot trust it. That's what we
starting (!!!) to do in Europe, but the big industries are too strong. So
when a lable says 'italian olive oil' you cannot be sure, even by law, that
it is 100% italian. Od course it is not allowed to mix olive and seed oil,
but every now and then it happens anyway.
So we should help people understand what makes good olive oil 'good'. That's
why I think that internet might have a very import function in the near
future, but there are so many other ways of spreading the information, for
instance through the press. People would like to understand what is really
good, but theay must be taught. In some way it is like with the wine. There
are so many differences, that it is very important to create an image for
the product. Olive Oil should be tasted and appreciated like wine (in fact,
the tasting panels do this type of work) and to have good and well known
restaurants that are proud to offers very good quality olive oil for their
meals can be important. Here in Tuscany the very good restaurants offer
several types of extra vergine olive oil for the salad and so on, and it is
an important part of a good meal. On the other hand there are many mediocre
restaurants that have only one mediocre type of oil and so somtimes when I
go eating in a restaurant I bring my own oil and proudly put it on the
table.
Volker


Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 09:11:09 +1000
From: "Phil Bramley" <bramleyp@one.net.au>
Subject: RE: olivio

Is there a good general awareness, in the Northern Hemisphere, of the
differences between extra virgin, virgin, pure etc. Not a lot down under but
olive oil on the table, as opposed to the medicine cabinet, is a recent
phenomenon!

Phil
</pre>
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