Leah Voskuil

BIG OLIVE OIL

Hoarding aesthetically pleasing cookbooks does not a chef make. This becomes painfully true in the confines of my not-so-confidential kitchen where I’ve gone viral for being unable to make a waffle. So when, bored out of my mind on a Tuesday, I asked my friend for an essay topic and she said, “olive oil!” I felt the tectonic plates of my life were about to shift. Is that dramatic? Yes. So is the world of Big Olive Oil.

Chat credit: Maral Chouljian Moldow

MEET ME UNDER THE OLIVE TREE
Once upon a time, in a land quite literally here and now, because it's Earth and I am looking at two bottles in front of me, olive oil existed. Predictably extracted from the fruit of the olive tree (Olea europaea, if you're feeling fancy), olive oil is a staple in Mediterranean cuisine, a topic of conversation regarding health benefits, a symbol of resilience and peace for you AP Literature freaks, and a tool widely used in various cooking styles.

SET IN STONE (FRUIT)
Olive oil comes in different grades depending on quality and production, with the two most common types being virgin olive oil and extra virgin olive oil. The former allows for the use of heat or chemicals during the pressing of olives, resulting in slightly higher acidity levels and a milder flavor. This is what you're using for sautéing, roasting, frying, and baking. (Canola oil, appreciated for its high smoke point, serves as more of a general-purpose cooking oil and is irrelevant to our discussion in this essay. We wish it the best.) The latter, that scrumptious extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), maintains its purity by rejecting heat or chemicals. EVOO is renowned for its rich flavor, green color, and low acidity. Now, we're talking salad drizzles, bread dips, and low-heat cooking to capture all the complex goodness in its most natural—and expensive—form. (Note: While it's possible to make extra virgin olive oil at home, that's not the focus of our discussion here.)

Chat credit: Elsa Flike

The power of pure extra virgin olive oil is tough to overstate. Rife with polyphenols (antioxidants that destroy free radicals and are believed to prevent all kinds of cancers), oleocanthal (thought to prevent Alzheimer’s), and other anti-inflammatory compounds, I would not be surprised if Gwyneth Paltrow herself bathes in EVOO.

QUALITY CONTROL WITH A SIDE OF CRIME
The earliest written mention of olive oil, on cuneiform tablets at Ebla in the 24th century B.C., describes teams of inspectors touring olive mills doing some quality control on behalf of the king. Fast forward to the Romans, who established an international trade in olive oil, allowing certain emperors to rise to power on olive oil wealth. With this new way to earn unfathomable amounts of currency, assurance and control was everything. Every shipment of olive oil was paired with handwritten notes in black or red ink that recorded all kinds of information: the locality where the oil was produced, the name of the producer, the weight and quality of the oil when the amphora was sealed, the name of the merchant who imported it, the name of the imperial functionary who confirmed this information when the amphora was reopened at its destination in Rome, and so on. These meticulous records were intended to prevent the siphoning off of oil en route, or the substitution of an inferior product. And reader, they were onto something with that last point.

In the classic historical leap we all take from Roman times to the 1980’s, let’s chat about the Spanish toxic oil syndrome of 1981 when non-edible rapeseed oil was sold as olive oil. It had an additive in it called aniline, a severe neurotoxin. This consumption caused one of the worst food catastrophes and food poisoning events in world history, killing 1,200 almost instantly, sending 25,000 to the hospital with neurological damage, and causing a severe musculoskeletal condition in around 20,000. The product’s impact is still being monitored today.

One would assume that such a cataclysmic event would spark new industry practices. However, that assumption would be incorrect. Let's delve into some fraud. In 2015, Italy's anti-fraud police squad examined whether seven well-known olive oil brands—Carapelli, Bertolli, Santa Sabina, Coricelli, Sasso, Primadonna, and Antica Badia—had been selling lower-quality virgin olive oil as 'extra virgin' olive oil, often with a 30-40% price increase. In a predictably conventional response, the allegations were rejected, with the argument that the oil had undergone careful analysis by both internal and external laboratories. In response to these doubts, Italian agriculture and customs initiated their own testing, revealing that nine out of every 20 bottles these producers sold in the country or exported were indeed tainted.

Between September 2016 to December 2019, research gathered from the Joint Research Center (JRC), the internal scientific service of the European Commission, and several food fraud databases, such as the E.U.’s RASFF system, and surveys to professionals and other members of the olive oil sector, recorded 32 cases of fraud with overlapping offenses in the global olive oil industry, with 20 of those cases in Europe: 16 cases involving the substitution of olive oil with other oils, 11 cases concerned with mislabeling olive oils, 4 cases involving false use of a geographical indicator, 5 cases concerning the distribution of counterfeit products, 6 related to the dilution of olive oils with other oils or inferior grades, and 1 case of theft. One EU anti-fraud investigator said olive oil fraud is “comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks,” and I think that is hilarious.

A personal favorite fraudette, which is what I will be calling fleeting moments of fraud from now until forever, sets us in Larissa, Greece, located in the northern province of Thessaly, in a workshop with a fleet of luxury vehicles a few years ago. Here, police arrested seven people and charged them with adding green dye to sunflower oil and marking it as half-priced olive oil, claiming direct-from-producer. The oil was packaged into pallets, each weighing a ton, before being exported. They’d already shipped 5 tons and had 12 ready to go. Four family members and three other relatives were charged with defrauding the state, issuing false documents, and money laundering. Authorities said they were also involved in criminal gang activities, but that’s none of my business.

There was also a 2019 bust of a criminal network selling fake olive oil in Germany and Italy, resulting in the arrest of 24 individuals and the seizure of 150,000 liters of fake olive oil in Southern Italy. Among those arrested was the network’s leader, who is considered to be the most important olive oil counterfeiter in Italy, and to that I say, give his name and WhatsApp immediately.

Today, the most common international Big Olive Oil infringements are marking virgin olive oil as extra virgin olive oil and selling blended olive and vegetable oils as pure olive oil. Brazil prefers to get crafty, mixing olive oil with lampante or soybean oil. To each their own fraud.

Leonardo Marseglia, the managing director of a big oil conglomerate who spoke to an actual outlet that is not me, suggests that only 2% of the world’s olive oil qualifies as extra virgin, that 8% is “good,” and 9% is “decent.” Much of that 90% is referred to as lamp oil, and is not suitable for human consumption until refined. Which, as you remember from a billion paragraphs ago, is not how the Romans nor Gwyneth want their EVOO. He warns where this fast and loose industry behavior could lead, posing a question about people with a soybean or peanut allergy who have been exposed to adulterated oil that’s been mixed with their allergen. “This is all ironic, because real olive oil is one of the healthiest foods that we know of,” he stated.

It is also ironic because technology has never been better, which means the product has never been more fresh, complex, and varied, and arguably more accessible with skyrocketing demand. Yet, a massive output of low-grade olive oils is pushing many small purveyors to the edge of bankruptcy in the face-off against formidable competition.

OIL ME UP
Quality extra virgin olive oil can be easy enough to come by if you know what you’re looking for. The best case scenario is putting your patooty at a mill where you can see the fresh olives turned into oil. You could get to know the miller and live the full EVOO fantasy. If that’s not available to you for whatever reason, let’s talk about the grocery store. At the market, your best bet, though not a guarantee, is to look for: harvest date (as opposed to a meaningless “best by” date), a specific place of production and producer, mention of the cultivar of olives used, dark glass bottles (light degrades olive oil), a D.O.P. seal on European oils, and a California Olive Oil Council seal on oil made in the U.S.

AT YOUR SERVICE
My favorite part of products that come with hopes that you have a mill nearby and give a multi-step framework for how to make sure the thing you bought is actually the thing you bought is that it comes with groups of people who slurp the product for a living.

Right now, the only approved method for quality control in international olive oil grading, when completed in tandem with physicochemical lab analysis, is through a formal panel accredited by the International Olive Council (IOC). Structurally, an olive oil taste panel consists of eight tasters plus a panel leader. They meet regularly to train their palates to recognize the 17 official sensory flaws listed by international regulation and identify the characteristics of high-quality oil.

Before we even get to the score sheets, we must recognize the IOC's detailed standards, methods, and guides for members of the panel. Parameters like the number of tasters in a panel, maximum tasting sessions per day, maximum number of samples per session, limits on consumption of foods, beverages, or smoking, the ideal time of day to taste, required length of breaks to avoid sensory fatigue, and having a “calm state of mind” are all required. The room itself must be “ambient” in wall color, absent of noise, a certain temperature, and other technicalities. All of this said, I pose the question: Who’s to say that the panel couldn’t be bought by Big Olive Oil for a better rating? I could not find a documentary on an olive oil tasting panel, but by God I expect to see one on Netflix by 2026.

There are three primary olive oil tasting sheets: The official IOC Organoleptic Profile Sheet, the Mario Solinas Quality Award Sensory Assessment Sheet, and the University of California Cooperative Extension Tasting Sheet. The IOC’s sheet is the most widely recognized; when a taster perceives an attribute, they mark a line according to intensity. Upon completion, the marks are measured in centimeters, aggregated amongst the panel, and then bam, that’s the score. The Mario Solinas sheet is closely tied to competition and is much more subjective, having tasters score qualities in harmony and complexity. A perfect score is 100 with up to 35 points awarded for aroma, 45 for flavor (yes, including retro-nasal aroma, you animals), and 20 points split between complexity and persistence in mouth-feel. The University of California sheet balances objective scoring of attributes with subjective designation of oil descriptions. Basically, it’s a blend of the two tests above.

Image Cred

No one has power in this world quite like the IOC, so let’s dig a little deeper here. As the taster goes through their six steps of pour, swirl, sniff, taste, swallow, record, they are studying these elements like it’s their last test on Earth. First, the sensory panels use a line scale to rate any given olive oil’s intensity on three positive attributes: Fruity, Bitter, Pungent. Within these, they’ll mark for aroma and taste, sensations perceived on the sides of the tongue, and biting sensations in the throat upon a swallow. Then, the panel will mark for negative attributes. The five most common defects according to the IOC are a muddy sediment, musty/humid/earthy, winey/vinegary/acid/sour, rancid, and wet wood. And I agree, none of those five things sound good.

A TASTE OF THINGS TO COME
An industry defined by thoughtfulness, nuance, and purity could only mean one thing: artificial intelligence is on its way. Last year, a group of researchers in Italy trained artificial intelligence to identify the provenance of extra virgin olive oil samples based on phenolic compounds and sterols — the presence of phenolic compounds being the real health benefits of olive oil. Using 408 samples of Taggiasca Ligure extra virgin olive oil collected over three harvest seasons, and the cooperation of local producer associations, the researchers labeled every sample with coordinates and built an AI system that was able to recognize chemical parameters with 100% accuracy, and a flexible enough dataset to handle distinguishing olive oil blends, too. If implemented, this technology would make it easier to better track olive varieties planted outside of their territory of origin and understand what implications, if any, this move would have on product quality and characteristics. It would be a deeper, more consistent understanding of an ever-elusive purity.

Speaking of science, let’s talk about what researchers are not-so-delightfully calling the e-nose. This powerful tool with analytical capabilities is able to differentiate perceived aromas of virgin olive oils across varieties. Results provided by the tasting panel and the volatile compounds matched the near-instant classification provided by this device. This proves that, combined with chemometric tools and as an additional tool for a tasting panel, the e-nose is a fast, simple, reliable, and low-cost method for product quality control at scale. Now, will the e-nose replace the panel? It could. It might. It probably will.

THE FINAL DRIZZLE
In the world of culinary adventure, olive oil stands as a symbol of resilience, health, and flavor. Its journey from ancient civilizations to modern dining tables is rife with tales of quality control, crime, and innovation. The sheer complexity and nuances of this liquid gold leave us both fascinated and cautious. As we strive for culinary excellence, let's remember that not all olive oils are created equal. Whether you're dipping bread, dressing salads, or sautéing vegetables, choosing the right olive oil can elevate your culinary creations to new heights. So, let the olive tree guide you, and may your kitchen always be graced with the finest extra virgin olive oil.

Sources available upon request. There are several, and I forgot how to use APA.

MARCO POLO FOR IKEA

Large cabinets make me irrationally upset, so do plates. The former is always too pointy and the latter too flat. In my humble opinion, the bowl-plate is the perfect container for any food. Put soup in there and let it breathe. Have enough room to compartmentalize your girl dinner according to color. Place a single, perfect chicken nugget in the center of the bowl-plate and smile. Long live the bowl-plate sitting free-range atop an open shelf—perhaps the exact opposite of how to handle anything porcelain.

I did not realize that I had such strong opinions about miscellaneous kitchen characters until a friend requested to learn more about porcelain. What is it? Where does it come from? Why do grandmas hoard it untouched behind bulky glass? Is it trinkets or plates or both or neither? If porcelain were on Drag Race, what song would it use to lip sync for its life? These are all equally important questions, and I will get to the bottom of all of ‘em.

Hold on tight to your precious porcelain. We’re going on a ride.

Elsa Flike, serving bowl.

WHAT IS PORCELAIN?
Valued for durability and delicacy (same), porcelain is often referred to as “white gold” by people with too much time on their hands. Traditional (Hard Paste) porcelain is made from two essential ingredients: kaolin, a silicate mineral white china clay for plasticity and structure, and petunse, or china stone, a feldspathic rock ground to powder for translucency and hardness. If heat can be considered an ingredient, all 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit required to fire true porcelain matter a whole bunch. If made and fired correctly, there is nothing thinner, no other clay that possesses such luminosity and strength, than queen porcelain. There’s also a less chic version of porcelain—”Soft Paste” or artificial if ya nasty—that’s a mixture of clay and ground glass requiring a less extreme firing temperature. This stuff can be cut with a file; the hard paste cannot. If you ever want to figure out which version of porcelain you have, I suggest throwing it on the ground. Both will shatter and you will not get your answer, but it’ll be fun.

Hard Paste Porcelain plate; Soft Paste Porcelain set.

SO…IT’S…CHINA?
Yeah, sorta. Porcelain products are often referred to as china, lowercase c, in English-speaking countries. Keep in mind that we’re not talking about bone china, which is a different thing, in this research because I simply cannot handle yet another deep dive into this corner of the world. That said, know that Hard Paste porcelain is preferred in Europe, whereas bone china is preferred in Britain and the United States because God forbid we all agree on something.

Left: bone china; Right: fine china. I went to actual China once and had a blast.

SUS SYMBOLISM
When we use our big, beautiful brains to think about deeper meanings, there seems to be this general consensus that porcelain symbolizes beauty, destiny, love, desire, escape from reality. (There are also notes of greed and death sprinkled in there, but YOLO I suppose.) The Chinese believed porcelain held powerful magic with the ability to negate poison or detect it when it was present in the vessel. I will say, my noggin was particularly drawn to the undercurrent chatter around porcelain purity and status in whiteness. Porcelain got its start in Asia but mostly ended up in the hands of white people owning all of this beauty, often scooping up rare items and putting them on display for themselves. We’ll get to it shortly, but European royalty worked tirelessly (read: trapped people with a lock and key to work on their behalf) to solve the secret craft of porcelain so they could have an abundance of these breathtakingly beautiful objects staring back at them without needing to pay exorbitant prices or hop on a waitlist that confirms our little princes aren’t that special. What does this fetishization of a purity-centric object and colonization of a craft reflect on the (mostly) men admiring its power and privilege? Sorta sus, fellas. Sortaaaaaaaa sus. Let me draw a direct line to Real Housewives here, too.


WHEREFORE ART THOU, MY HUMPS?
There are three famous white hills where porcelain hails. I’d put photos of the hills here if my laptop wasn’t at 6%, but trust me when I tell you they look like three average hills. Jingdezhen is the porcelain capital of the world, no cap.

Jingdezhen, Porcelain City

Meissen, Germany, houses the second famous white hill, and first in Europe. More on this later. And though this is the middle child hill, it's still a big deal; Queen Elizabeth II received a Meissen porcelain service as a wedding gift. Big slay for her.

Thirdly, it’s in Plymouth, England, where a Quaker named William Cookworthy broke down the production ratio, and where the fine-china company Wedgwood was established. Your granny gets her porcelain from here, and we love her for that. She’s my Queen Elizabeth II.

Potentially your grandma.

DYNASTY DOIN’ IT TO ‘EM
The exact date some crafty human created porcelain is unknown because the internet was not around during the Han Dynasty. In fact, I’m finding conflicting reports about when porcelain first jumped on the scene at all. When I acquire my time machine I will secure this clarity for us all. So far as we, the porcelain community, can tell, the earliest type of porcelain was produced during the Han (206 BC - 220 AD) Dynasty. The first Western reference to Chinese porcelain appeared in 851 AD when a merchant Suleiman wrote, "The Chinese have a fine clay of which they make drinking vessels as fine as glass; one can see the liquid contained in them,” presumably in their diary because no one can tell me otherwise. By the Song (960 - 1279) Dynasty, pure white porcelain was perfected and became one of the most admired Chinese inventions by anyone with mf taste. Fast forward to the Ming Dynasty in which porcelain became a source of imperial pride. The Yongle Emperor erected a white porcelain brick pagoda in Nanjing (My friend Laura is from Nanjing. Hi, Laura!), securing a smooth-glazed type of white porcelain as his sorta trademarked slay, if you will. ‘Twas in the Qing Dynasty in which the Jingdezhen porcelain really reached its peak.

Qing Dynasty porcelain, known for elegance, grace, and fine detail.

EUROPE’S HOTTEST DROP OF THE 14TH CENTURY
Marco Polo, a man who I just assume was 5’2”, first brought porcelain from China to Europe: a small gray-green jar amid his bounty of silk brocades, spices, and musky scents. Polo called it porcellana, a nickname for the cowry shell’s shiny, white surface. In the 16th century, the Portuguese and the Dutch established their commercial trade routes to the Far East, thus creating a robust market of export ware. Porcelain was on the move like never before, made in China for Europe. During the last long Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty (1664 - 1912 AD), there was a temporary halt on porcelain production. Emperor Kangxi reorganized Jingdezhen because he was in his Marie Kondo era I guess. Rulers and other wealthy peeps from around the world would then send in portraits, statues, and designs requesting to be reproduced in porcelain. This sorta gives me Joann Fabrics or Michaels energy if I’m being honest. Anywho, enamel-painted porcelain became mainstream, along with elaborately painted porcelain for the Qing imperial court. Chinese porcelain remained highly prized for its artwork, bright and beautiful colors, durability, and utility, and for being relatively cheap for those allowed in the scene.

LOOKED THIS UP AFTER THE FACT AND I WAS OFF BY ONE INCH. THANK YOU, INFO FAMOUS PEOPLE.

35,798 PIECES OF PORCELAIN
European royalty was fkn pissed they couldn’t figure out how to make porcelain on their own. The routes were pretty steady, but things still broke, mistakes were still made, and gosh diggity darn it, they just wanted to be able to do it themselves. Enter: King Augustus the Strong. A self-confessed shopaholic who had what he called die Porzellankrankheit, or “porcelain sickness,” sought out to crack the formula the way any ruler would, by locking two experts in a basement. Mr. King Augustus the Strong selected two German pals for his mission: supervisor Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, a gifted mathematician, physicist, physician, and philosopher, and supervisee Johann Friedrich Böttger, alchemist and apparent asshole fraud (fun fact: his own biographer said he had a “childish demeanor” which was a major dig in the 1700’s). They nailed the secret of hard paste porcelain in 1707 at the Meissen factory in Saxony. Just as the duo produced their first solid porcelain—a jar is described as being “half translucent and milk white, like narcissus”—Tschinhaus died. There was a robbery, papers went missing, and Böttger kept the operation going, eventually refining the formula to a level that could be reproduced and porcelain thus manufactured.

Augustus the Strong, c’mon curls.

In 1733, Augustus died at the honorable age of 62, his kingdom a financial ruin, with nine children from six different women, and a collection of 35,798 pieces of porcelain. That’s our guy.


SPECIAL SPARKLE’S NOT SO SPECIAL NOW, HUH?
By the middle of the 18th century, an industry was born. Porcelain became bourgeois, a status symbol for more than just the aristocrats. Holy Roman princes founded mercantile manufactures that became rivaled by private entrepreneurs eager for profit. The price of porcelain obviously plummeted because of a flooded market. Ugh! By the 19th and 20th centuries, porcelain became essential to bourgeois dining, and also acquired new functions in insulator tubes, shell casings, and teeth. The latter makes me uncomfortable.

Thank you, no :)

TODAY’S PORCELAIN TRADE
Listen, porcelain is great and fine. Today, some people smash porcelain at weddings for good luck. According to medieval times, the noise from the broken plates wards off evil spirits. The more shards, the more luck for the couple. Other people have weird little trinkets or a bunch of plates they never use as a status symbol. Most of my circle—married, relationship, situationship nonsense, or single; Boomer, Millennial, or Gen Z—couldn’t care less when IKEA exists.

Sources available upon request.