Freshly harvested olive oil is one of life’s simplest pleasures, and the time to enjoy it is now
A few years ago, we were lucky enough to meet Maggie and Martin, the wonderful couple behind Mother’s Garden, an olive grove in Catalonia, whose adventures were documented in the Channel 4 series No Going Back. And during that meeting, they crystallised something for us that we had never properly considered before: an olive is a fruit, so olive oil is, essentially, fruit juice.
Think of a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, how bright and alive it tastes, bursting with fragrance and flavour. Now think of that same juice after a few days in the fridge or poured from a carton. It still tastes of oranges, yes, but something is missing. Olive oil is much the same, although, being oil, it tastes more stable. Fresh olive oil hums with flavour, plays tricks on the tongue and is bursting with layers. In fact, it is a completely different experience from the regular stuff.
New- season oil isn’t always easy to find, admittedly, but now is the time to seek it out. Small producers and independent importers are probably your best bet – try Olive Hill Sabina from Italy, Olea Las from Greece or Olive Olive from Cyprus, all of which are now offering, or preparing to release, this autumn’s harvest. Look for a harvest date rather than a best before date, and don’t be shy about asking questions: any good supplier will be delighted that you care.
Of course, olive oil has become terribly expensive. A couple of years back, Mina Holland wrote about its rising cost, while Yotam Ottolenghi wondered when it’s worth using the good stuff (extra-virgin). There is a perfectly sensible school of thought that says we should use it sparingly, and save our best bottles for finishing dishes. But there is another school of thought – and one to which we enthusiastically subscribe – that says some luxuries should be enjoyed in abundance, or not at all.
A timid drizzle of good oil is all very well, but sometimes you want a great golden pool of the stuff, something to mop up with bread and that leaves your lips shining. Sometimes you want a recipe full of it: Meera Sodha’s Spanish potatoes cooked slowly in olive oil, Angela Hartnett’s garlic confit, or Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers’ grape focaccia. Or for a sweeter option, Benjamina Ebuehi’s olive oil cake, or Ravneet Gill’s orange and almond cake with plum compote.
Now is the season to seek out new oil, open the bottle or tin immediately and use it with abandon. After all, fresh olive oil is one of life’s simplest and most wholesome pleasures, as well as one of its most delicious.
Our week in food
A new Sunday ritual | Our exploration of the culinary delights of our local neighbourhood in Camberwell, south-east London, continues with a Sunday cycle to Toad bakery. The long wait in a long line with the hip crowd makes for a prime people-watching experience, and as for the baked goods themselves, well, what can we say? We are a bit late to the party, but we have now been converted.
Flight of fancy | Further afield, we finally made it to Lime Wood hotel in New Forest, Hampshire, where we got to cook with Luke Holder, who has to be one of the nicest, classiest people in food. The hotel itself is very fancy, very beautiful and decidedly expensive, but the restaurant and bar are extremely good value, not least because the produce coming into that kitchen is pristine and the food coming out of it is stellar. A must-have if you are ever in the area.
Spoon-fed | Sometimes a book comes along at the right time, and this year that book is Alissa Timoshkina’s Lozhka: Eastern European Soups, Stews & Other Things We Eat with a Spoon. As its subtitle suggests, it is full of recipes for spoonable food, and just the kind of stuff you want to eat when the weather turns. We hosted a supper club for the book on the first rainy day of autumn and, while it was cold and wet outside, inside it was pure heaven.
