All About Olive Oil

Olive oil is an essential ingredient in any chef's kitchen. Learn more about how it should taste, where it's produced and how you should use it.

All About Olive Oil Rebecca Brayton: An olive oils taste depends on the location where the olives are grown. Hi, I'm Rebecca Brayton and welcome to wathchmojo.com and today, we’ll be learning more about olive oil. What is the difference between you know extra virgin olive oil and virgin olive oil? Effy Ligris: Extra virgin is basically a press, it's a single pressing and it's a cold press so there's no heat application to it. With the new technology that’s available nowadays, it's usually one pressing. The old technology would have more than one pressing, you wouldn’t get maybe a virgin olive oil supposed to an extra virgin. And if the acidity is too high, they have to correct it either with chemicals and that’s called the refined oil. So that would not necessarily qualify as an extra virgin olive oil. Rebecca Brayton: Now what is olive oil best used for? I mean I know it's not cooking oil. Effy Ligris: You're better off using it in its raw form. You can apply it on top of the food at the end of the cooking process. You can do pesto with it. You can make raw sauces with it, chimichurri sauce. Rebecca Brayton: What is it's supposed to take like? Effy Ligris: There are varying degrees of taste starting with intense medium and light. And that of course will depend on the type of olive you have, when you harvest and the type of climate and the soil that it's grown in. So, if you have life a really fresh early harvest olive oil sometimes it have like green grassy nodes, artichoke, tomato leaf, some fuzz and bitterness, then there's always a bit of a kick at the back of your throat when it's fresh. The more ripe the olive gets, the more mellow-y the flavor is. Rebecca Brayton: So can you tell us about this competition? Marrie-Laure Galfout: This is the third edition of the olive oil competition. This is the most important international olive oil competition in North America. This year, we've had 100 participants from 13 different countries. Each participating olive oil chooses in which category he wants his product to be judged. So there is light fruit flavor, medium fruit flavor and strong fruit flavor. And then we have a jury that is made up of experts in the olive oil industry. Rebecca Brayton: What countries are typical olive oil producers? Marrie-Laure Galfout: We have a lot of participants that come from Italy and Spain. But there are emerging countries that we can find this year such as Slovenia there's an olive oil from Palestine. We have a lot of participants from Chile as well. Rebecca Brayton: What denotes a good quality olive oil? Marrie-Laure Galfout: Usually an olive oil that is appreciated is an olive oil that is fresh and which you can sense that the fruit was pressed while it was still fresh. Rebecca Brayton: Thank you very much. Marrie-Laure Galfout: Thank you.