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<pre>Volker Piasta wrote:
> From: "Volker Piasta" <
piasta@sirt.pisa.it>
>
> 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
>
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To whom it may concern:
I beseech you to take me off your mailing list!! I have been getting mail from
people who do not concern me. My e-mail address is:
italiantable@piacere.com
I look forward to not hearing from your clients.
Thanks-
Julie Byun
The Italian Table
230 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1111
New York - NY 10001
Tel. (212) 725-8764 ext.11
Fax. (212) 889-3907
italiantable.piacere@usa.net
http://www.piacere.com
</pre>
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