BACK IN ITALY
My sparse blog entries are not really an indication of my travels or the intensity of my life. Frankly, it is more an expression of a somewhat lazy, but busy person who loves to share but only rarely.
Fall in Rome is always beautiful. This year though it’s more like summer but a little cooler. It’s been in the 70’s my whole trip. Enjoyable but not usual. Normally by now I’m often freezing because Italians cannot turn on the heat until mid-November and it’s pretty cold at least a couple weeks before there is heat.
This fall is much about harvests. There are few brontè pistachios, porcini or sun dried tomatoes. Wine will have the lowest output in six years. Rice crops in the north were devastated. And, olive oil — the frantoio I visit said they have an 80% lower production this year.
Buyers of EVOO will have to be extremely vigilant. Fraud in labeling olive oil has been a constant problem, but with less availability, there will be a greater necessity to read labels and buy for quality, not just price. Olive oil fraud occurs when the oil is mixed with inferior types of oils, including vegetable or soybean oil, to reduce production costs.
Moreover, a significant portion of olive oil labeled as “Italian” does not originate from Italy but from countries such as Syria, Morocco, Tunisia, or Turkey or Argentina. These can be labeled (in very, very tiny print) ‘a mix of E.U. olive oils or ‘mix of E.U. and non‑E.U. olive oils’.
Know what you are buying and remember to store it in a cool, dark place with a tightly closed container. A good quality olive oil should last two years, a olio nuovo )first pressing will have the highest antioxidant levels for about 18 months.
Expressly Italian 