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Olive farmer draws on GREEK PUÅ\LUJL It’s close to closing time at the farmers’ market but Maria Mitsakis is in no hurry. It’s a chilly, overcast June day and all around her, stallholders are packing up unsold product, taking down their stalls and waving goodbyes. Many haven’t bothered to show up, but the cheerful Maria has time for everyone and is always willing to talk extra virgin olive oil. 178 | TASMANIAN LIFE
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Slowly but surely, olives and olive oil are catching on in Tasmania. Though the first commercial olive trees here were only planted 12 to 15 years ago, there are currently about 60 members of the Tasmanian Olive Council.
M
aria and her husband, Nikolaus, established Penna Valley Produce 20 years ago, when they planted cherries on a 25acre property near Hobart airport. They now grow apricots as well, and 12 years ago they planted olive trees to balance the summer harvest with a winter one — something inherent to Nick’s Greek background. In Tasmania, olives are harvested between May and July, depending on the variety and the weather. The Mitsakis were among the first olive producers in the state and have enjoyed the learning experience of growing and processing olives. Olive farming isn’t without its setbacks. In 2000, right before Maria and Nick harvested their very first crop, all the olives were stolen from their trees in the middle of the night. “You’ve worked so hard to get the soil ready, plant the trees, and then to have that first crop [stolen] that you’ve been spending so long to get. It was just unbelievable to think that could happen,” Maria says. Penna Valley Produce has long since recovered from the setback but has encountered other difficulties along the way. Olive growing is still relatively new to Tasmania, so persuading customers to try their olive oil, which they began processing last year, is more difficult than selling produce such as cherries and apricots. “Every second customer is asking: “‘what’s extra virgin olive oil? What’s the difference between extra virgin olive oil and olive oil and light olive oil?’” Maria says. “Even though it’s coming in now and you see people eating it, a lot of people still haven’t tasted it and don’t real-
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ise the health benefits of including extra virgin olive oil in their diet.” Slowly but surely, olives and olive oil are catching on in Tasmania. Though the first commercial olive trees here were only planted 12 to 15 years ago, there are currently about 60 members of the Tasmanian Olive Council. The council’s secretary, Robert Goddard, estimates there may be another 30 to 40 olive growers in the state who are not part of the association. Between them, about 100 tons of olives are grown in Tasmania every year. Like the Mitsakis, most Tasmanian olive growers have relatively small productions compared to many mainland farms, but the quality of Tasmanian olives and olive oil is high. According to Goddard, Tasmanian olive oils took four out of the 12 gold medals awarded at the 2009 National Extra Virgin Olive Oil Show, as well as several silver and bronze. Maria attributes the amount of time it has taken for olive oil to catch on in Tasmania to our relatively small Italian and Greek populations as compared to places such as Melbourne. Food culture in Tasmania has changed quite a bit, though, from when Nick Mitsakis first moved to Tasmania from Greece in 1964. Back then, olive oil wasn’t even available from the supermarket and he had to buy it from the chemist in small jars. “The chemist would ask: ‘What do you use all that olive oil for?’” Maria says. “My husband ate it but the chemist only thought he used it on the skin.” For Nick Mitsakis, using olives and olive oil in cuisine was an important part of his Greek heritage. It became a part of Maria’s heritage
as well, when the couple moved to Greece to spend time with Nick’s mother before the birth of their first daughter. Maria had learned Greek in school but upon arriving in Greece, discovered that she couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. Mitsakis that if weeks she hadtonot become farmer, she would “It tookbelieves me about two realise theyawere cutting off the ends still of have been a businesswoman in some capacity, but she has no the words I’d learned in school,” she says. regretsSince about her Mitsakis choice ofhas profession. then, spent a total of five years in Greece. She “When you marry a farmer, a farmer,” says.to“Much enjoys the freedom of her you farm,become as it allows her toshe return Greece to my mother’s disgust, I became a farmer’s wife, not a schoolteacher. from time to time. But I like theable lifestyle enjoying whathas we’re doing.”my culture “Being to goand backwe’re and forth to Greece enriched and my children’s culture,” she says. “On one trip, I took the children to Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. They saw a woman who must’ve been in her eighties, with an oxen, ploughing the fields, with her small granddaughter beside her. I think they realised how lucky they were to live in Australia.” There’s at least one concrete aspect of culture that the Mitsakis’ three daughters have taken away from their Greek heritage: a love of olives. “My children eat olives like lollies,” Maria says. “Right from when they were little.” In Greece, everyone in Nick Mitsakis’ family used olive oil in his or her food. After World War Two, olive oil was so expensive that his mother would drip tiny amounts of the oil onto the cooked food rather than go without. They’re not the only ones; 60 percent of cultivated land in Greece is dedicated to olive production and the country claims the highest per capita consumption of olive oil in the world. The Mitsakis family has brought more than just the Greek love of
olives back to Tasmania; they also rely on traditional Greek modes of production. Fresh olives are extremely bitter and must be pickled before they’re edible. Most commercial olive producers do this by soaking the olives in chemical baths but the Mitsakis family soak their olives in traditional saltwater baths to draw out any bitterness. According to Tasmanian Farm Gate farmers’ market coordinator, Madi Peattie, the Mitsakis’ age old methods are worthwhile. “They’ve got a fantastic product and fantastic ethos,” Madi says. They were among the founding stallholders at the farmers’ market when it first opened in October last year. The market is now one of Penna Valley Produce’s primary means of marketing and distribution. “For these producers to come on board with a market that wasn’t established in terms of customer base and quantity of producers says a lot about them and their vision,” Maddi says. Like the Mitsakis’ product, most Tasmanian olive oil is sold and consumed locally. Local oil can be found at farmers’ markets, shows and delis, and is increasingly served in locally owned restaurants. A small portion of Tasmanian olive oil is sold on the mainland of Australia and none is currently exported. Although Mary Mitsakis finds marketing the olive oil difficult, she enjoys the challenge. In fact, there isn’t much she doesn’t enjoy about the process. “My favourite part is when you walk into the processing plant and you get the most beautiful smell,” she says. “It’s addictive, it really is.” She also enjoys the daily reminders of her time in Greece. “I like eating lunch in the grove and pretending I’m in Europe somewhere.” TASMANIAN TASMANIANLIFE LIFE| 181 | 181