The Jerusalem Post has a short article today entitled Olive oil: Liquid gold.
Olive oil has been part of Jewish life in the land of Israel since Biblical times, characteristic of its landscape.
My love for olive oil pushed me observe its creation, since the olives fall from the trees at the harvest until the oil leaves the kennel to the can or bottle.
Jewish farmers production has grown enormously, as much as its consumption in the Israeli kitchen and this due not only by its delicious taste but also by its medical qualities, being a valuable source of antioxidants and “good” cholesterol.
Knowing that not all oils are as pure as the labels on their bottles proclaim, but are mixed with other cheaper oils as soybeans or corn, it was important for me to get a professional reliable oil press and with craft concept, where the oil is mostly made with the soul…
It was here.
There is a slide show, From the tree to the bottle, here.
It got me thinking of the vast amounts of archaeological evidence that the olive oil industry has left behind. In Biblical times olives, grew in groves in the thinner soil of the Palestinian hills. Like grapes, olives too were pressed, though under much heavier weights, with the oil being allowed to run off into vats. The same facilities could be used given that olives ripened later than grapes. Olive oil was graded according to the number of pressing it had received and features as an extremely effective trading commodity, hence ‘liquid gold’. Many olive oil mills and presses have been recovered archaeologically in Israel.
