Olives- Food Tourism

As I mentioned in my last blog, food tourism has become a large market, even Airbnb offering food tours, cooking classes and traditional meals cooked by locals. I have been fortunate to spend time, living and working on a Finca in Majorcan which had olive trees and Cortijo in Andalucía which had a vineyard and bodega, olive, almond and pomegranate trees and gardens growing various vegetables and fruits. Which were used to feed the guests who were staying.

A Finca is generally a decent sized plot of land usually over 2000 m2 that may or may not have a building on it. A Cortijo is a large working farm of usually more than 10 hectares with a farm house building which would include minimum of one main building with two wings giving it a “U” shape. These often have a courtyard in the middle. This is derived from the Latin word- cohorticulum, a diminutive of cohors, meaning courtyard. Many Cortijo’s became deserted following General Franco's Plan de Estabilización and the abandonment of traditional agricultural practices by the local youth that swept over rural Spain during the second half of the 20th century. However, many of these are not been renovated by the English and Germans for tourism and small specialist farms.

The wide variety of olives produced in Spain is combined with the great variety of existing microclimates throughout the country to produce an extensive variety of oils, 250 in total. Because I have greater knowledge of the Majorcan olives, I am going to focus on Majorca.

The American president, Thomas Jefferson, once said, the olive tree is surely the greatest gift from the heavens. With more than 750,000 olive trees, 90% of them more than 500 years old, Mallorca is truly blessed. These ancient gnarled and twisted trees are an intrinsic part of Mallorca’s landscape.

Have you ever tried a Majorcan olive? Not the round ones, the Spanish table olive or the Manzanilla, but the one which is matt green with an elongated shape and slightly bitter taste. Just like the island where it is grown, the Majorcan olive is bursting with a character and distinct taste of its own! It wasn’t until 2002, that the Denomination of Origin ‘Oli de Mallorca’ was created. This hallmark is applied to some of Majorca’s best extra virgin olive oils, which are produced specifically from the mallorquina, arbequina, and picual varieties.

 Much of the farming is still done by the traditional methods, in October the trees are bashed with sticks, called gaules, and the olives fall onto the nets that are placed on the ground below. One tree will yield about 40 kgs of olives. In some villages the oil produced is for personal use rather than for sale, and the villagers held each other to pick the crop in return for some finished oil. As soon as the olives are picked, they have to be taken to the olive press or tafona, as too much contact with oxygen in the air can turn the olives bitter and compromise the flavour of the oil.

 The actress, Carol Drinkwater, has written a series of books on her own experiences of owing and running an olive farm in the south of France. I enjoyed reading about the trials and tribulations of both renovating a property and growing olives.

It is possible to experience the flavours and aromas of authentic, rural Majorca as many of the renowned estates hold gastronomic tours and events. The website below gives details.

Iwww.abc-mallorca.com 

Some of the most popular oils are listed below;

Treurer

The Miralles family’s make first-class oil is made only from arbequina olives grown at their Finca near Algaida. Fruity and spicy, with delicate bitter notes, their oil is well balanced with aromatic hints of almonds, walnuts, and fennel. The name Treuer comes from the word tresorer, which means keeper of the treasure.

Son Catiu

Three oils; picual, arbequina, and a coupage, are produced at their Son Catiu centre situated between Inca and Llubi. They have a shop, tasting area and the islands largest and most modern olive press.

Biniagual

The Moors planted the first olive trees on the Biniagual estate in the 13th century and, today, the Finca has around 1,000 olive trees. This high-quality extra virgin olive oil is made from hand-harvested arbequina olives.

Son Moragues

Son Moragues, is an estate between Valldemossa and Deià. The 700-year-old Finca, dates back to the 14th century when the Moragues family first started cultivating the olive groves. The estate became famous due to Archduke Ludwig Salvador of Austria who acquired numerous plots of land around Valldemossa. Son Moragues was at the centre of his agricultural work and his olive oil won its first international award in 1888 at the world fair in Barcelona. He was a progressive man: a non-conformist, keen traveller, passionate scientist and visionary who was a keen advocate for preserving the environment and its local agriculture and culture. The olives are still harvested by hand and processed in the oil mill using the cold extraction method. Each individual, wild-growing olive tree (Ollastre) has been enriched with the “Majorcan variety” so that the oil from Son Moragues still originates from the same trees that the Archduke used without any use of pesticides or chemicals.

In 2006 the change to ecological farming began. Ancient knowledge is now being used to bring ancient traditions into the 21^st century. The nature conservation and sale of the products supports the preservation of the Serra de Tramuntana which has been declared a UNESCO world heritage site. Agriculture is viewed from a holistic viewpoint and they strive for trees, animals, plants and insects to be seen as one all-encompassing ecosystem.

 We cultivate and preserve the trees of our predecessors and use similar techniques.

 Ecological farming makes an important contribution to the protection of the environment and the regeneration of rural regions as projects such as these catch the interest of young people

Uta Werner- Son Moragues

Special events are hosted, offering an outdoor tasting of the critically acclaimed olive oil, a visit to the estate’s olive press ending with a three-course Majorcan lunch from a two-Michelin-star local chef. See their website for more details. www.sonmoragues.com

So next time you are visiting Majorca and you want to try a different experience what about going to an olive farm?

Olive Trees and Oil and The Mediterranean Diet

I spent time on Majorca, working at a Finca which grew olives. Ancient olive trees were dotted alongside the mountains, which reminded me of a magical forest like living tree-men, the branches looked like limbs with their strange gnarled shapes. Olive tree were considered to be a symbol of peace and immortality and were known as the Tree of Eternity, in part because the trees can live for up to 1500 years. The first olive plant was cultivated some 7,000 years ago in Mediterranean regions. Like many things they were introduced to Spain by the Romans. The first recorded evidence was during Julius Caesar's campaigns. In the book De Bello Hispanico, it relates an anecdote about Caesar's cavalry planting an olive tree plantation close to Sevilla, in Andalucía, in the 1st century BC. Olive oil production continued to grow during the Moorish occupation, the trees surviving the ravages and devastation of many wars. Historians claim that the olive is synonymous of civilization. During the 16th and 17th centuries, olives were later taken to the New World by Spanish settlers, and are now established in many former colonial areas, including California and South America.

Spain has a surprising variety of climates and microclimates. With thousands of years of evolution, the olive tree has adapted to cope with extreme conditions. These include drought, fire, poor soils and even very low temperatures for short periods. There are 260 olive varieties used to produce Spanish olive oils meaning that there is a far wider range of aromas and tastes amongst Spanish oils than amongst those of any other oil producing nation. Some Spanish oils taste sweet and smooth, whereas others have great body and character with a varying intensity of a pleasant bitterness or pungency. Spanish olive oils usually have an intense fruity aroma reminiscent of green or ripe olives.

Since ancient times it has been deeply rooted into all the areas of human experience from the material aspects of life to the spiritual and was considered a sacred food. Its many uses have converted olive oil in a highly valued and greatly appreciated commodity. In addition to its culinary uses for dressings, or as an excellent method of food preservation, oil has been used for medicinal, cosmetic, and religious purposes. Spanish olive oil has many ambassadors. Award-winning chefs create 9-course menus from this ‘liquid gold’ to demonstrate how to incorporate the traditional flavour of Mediterranean food into modern gourmet cuisine. Food tourism is becoming popular holding tastings, similar to wine tastings, to introduce customers to trying and selecting the right oil.

Nowadays nutrition studies have confirmed its incredible health benefits. The antioxidants in olive oil help protect the body from cellular damage caused by molecules called free radicals that can lead to a range of health conditions and disease. In the Mediterranean, people preserve olives in olive oil or salted water eating them whole or chopped adding them to many traditional dishes. Olive oil is used as a dip for bread, for drizzling on pasta, in cooking, or as a salad dressing. Some people consume it by the spoonful for medicinal purposes.

Extra virgin olive oil, which is the best quality oil available, contains a large amount of monounsaturated fats and some polyunsaturated fatty acids. Apart from its beneficial fatty acids, it contains modest amounts of vitamins E and K. biologically active and may reduce your risk of chronic disease. The diets of adults from several Mediterranean islands were analysed to see how olive oil related to aging. The researchers found that those who used olive oil exclusively as their dietary fat had significant improvements in the successful aging index, which is a measure of age-related lifestyle, social and clinical factors. These findings were especially strong for people over 70 years old.

The cultivation of olives and production of oil, has given wealth to Spain not just its economic but gastronomically. The Romans, may have been the first to cultivate olives but the Spanish have turned them into an artform!