Olive. Oil.

Seems obvious, doesn’t it? But just because it quacks like a duck, is priced like a duck, and is labeled ‘duck,’ doesn’t mean it is an aquatic bird. Oils are not created equal in our lovely industrial age. And since you only need to mutter the word ‘fats’ to create a riot in a mall, it is important to understand what is in that bottle you picked up for $8.95 at Safeway.

Olive oil is not always made from olives. Ah, they got you there, didn’t they? Olive oil has to contain oil from olives, in the same way scotch has to contain grain alcohol refined in Scotland. But we forget that the point of using olive oil – as distinct from, for example, industrial grade lamp oil – is because olive oil tastes like olives.

It TASTES LIKE OLIVES.

Go into your kitchen. You have olive oil there. Open the bottle and take a sniff. Does it smell like olives?

This is olive oil made in Lebanon. I admit that it cost me over thirty dollars. But notice that it is full of cloudy sediment. That happens when you juice an olive. Smell it. It smells like olives. Not in a harsh, salty, overpowering way – more of an essential oil kind of way. It smells like an olive grove on Santorini in summer. It tastes even better. Smell this oil and you will actually want to go out and buy French bread or make a salad.

Oh, and I wasn’t kidding about the industrial grade lamp oil. I was a little horrified to learn that’s what some common olive oils are diluted with.

Coming up next: seven days of miso!