Oil-making Mammas an to

They should try oil that is typical of where the olives grow

by Valentina Cardone, Laboratorio Chemiservice

Extra-virgin olive oil was the first truly natural food that I could give my son, unfortunately not until several months after his birth. Being unable to breastfeed him, Giorgio was first fed with artificial milk, then with puréed fruit, then with baby food, on which he could finally share the experience of enjoying extra-virgin olive oil.

Just as we never spoke to him using babytalk or in a childish tone of voice, nor did we ever imagine adding oil to his food that was different to what we were using ourselves at the time. I clearly remember that it was in late November 2016, and it had been a surprisingly good growing year, so I had no difficulty finding an olive oil that I was impressed with. It was a particularly harmonious, balanced monovarietal made solely from Coratina olives from the Castel del Monte area. Perhaps because it was only a few years ago, but I remember everything about the olive oil I chose and the act of pouring it onto both my food and his, in that form of “communion” we were taking part in for the first time. I never considered trying to find an olive oil that was “more suitable for children”. I wanted him to experience oil that was typical of the place where the olives had grown and where its taste was created, because this too is part of our identity: recognizing the sensory peculiarities of the place where we live, acknowledging their real importance, while remaining open to new experiences, to olive oils that represent other places and other cultures. One thing that was really important to me was ensuring that his first experience with olive oil would not be conditioned by the presence of avoidable negative attributes, such as the rancid flavours sometimes found in poorly stored oils; nor did I want him to encounter the “heated” sensation typical of oils obtained from olives which are overripe or have been left in the press too long. Because from personal experience, I am well aware that certain flavours remain in your memory and are “normalized” by it: you end up thinking that this is what extra-virgin olive oil is really like, “how it’s supposed to be”. And this means you start off on the wrong foot. With an experiential disadvantage, we might say.

Today Giorgio is 6 years old, and we have never had to explain where olive oil comes from; he has worked it out himself with time.

The rhythm of his life, like ours, follows that of the olive-oil year, at the end of which “the samples arrive” (our house and the laboratory are located in the same building). Inevitably, he shares in the satisfactions and difficulties of this period which begins when it’s still warm enough to go swimming in the sea, and ends with the arrival of Christmas. It’s a period of hard work, and he ends up learning new words: fly, mill, drought, yield, temperatures, harvest, transformation. Work is hectic and it’s not always easy to keep calm as we wait for the bottles to arrive, still bare, without labels, without branding, without anything except the colours of nature and their flavours, different every year. Each bottle has a story to tell, a story told in numbers and concise words.

I can’t deny that I am always moved to see his little cupped hands gripping the cobalt coloured glass, closing his hands over the top to warm it up, sticking his nose in to grasp a sudden, fleeting sensation, and raising his eyes to look for an answer in mine. These are movements I saw my father make, and that Giorgio sees me make too. Perhaps in a few years they will no longer be of interest to him. Perhaps he will have other passions, different to mine. But right now, these are the everyday actions that bring a smile to our faces, that we enjoy, and that we hope may be useful to others.