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Re: Are all olive oils created the same?
When we were living in Italy and praised the olive oil from one region to an Italian living in another region, it was taken as a great insult. Quality of olive oil gets the same respect in Italy as quality of wine does in France. If you develop a taste for good olive oil, you'll never again buy the commercial brands you find sitting on grocery shelves for months and years. Whether they all have the same health benefits is a question I can't answer but they definitely don't have the same taste benefits.
Since returning from Italy, we've found that the oils that we used in Italy are too expensive but we've found some excellent ones from Turkey and Greece, and Spain. Color and age are a good marker. Always purchase extra virgin with a deep green color and never buy oils that have been sitting on the shelf for months. Specialty stores usually carry some good brands.
A good friend from Italy is a writer and tour guide in Assisi. Anne is originally from Wisconsin but married an Italian shortly after college and has been living in rural Umbria for close to thirty years. She gives cooking lessons in the U.S. every February and March. She has an article on the ritual of picking olives on her website: annesitaly, under section on Memories of Rural Life. You might enjoy reading it. She also has some excellent recipes posted on her site.
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