by Mueller, Tom
To name all the olive growers and oil-makers who, over the years, have set aside their important work to field my ignorant questions would require a dozen densely printed pages, and a far better memory than I possess. What follows is a very incomplete list, organized by country, of those who have improved my knowledge of how olives are grown and how oil is coaxed from them.
In Italy, where I live and first encountered fine oil, I want to thank the De Carlo family, Andreas März, Angelo Guarini, Paolo Pasquali, Gemma Pasquali, Marzia Massari, Gregorio Minervini, Marco and Lorenza Pallanti, Giuseppe Mazzacolin, Tony Sasa, and Gino Celletti, for stimulating conversations and many magnificent meals. Thanks to Leonardo Colavita and Marco De Ceglie for insightful commentary on the oil business at the industrial as well as the family level, and to Sabino Angeloro, Francesco Caricato, Leonardo Marseglia, Laura Marvaldi, Domenico Ribatti, Nicola Ruggiero, and Silvestro at Ottava Piccola, for their often contradictory but always engaging views of the oil business.
In Spain, Rosa and Francisco Vañó of Castillo de Canena were the ideal ambassadors to premium olive oil, in Andalucía and beyond. Thanks also to Brigida Jiménez Herrera of IFAPA, Carlos Falcó of Pagos de Familia Marqués de Griñón, and Luis Rallo Romero of the University of Córdoba.
In Greece, the aid of Rhea Spyridou and Vassilis Zampounis of Axion Agro was essential to my work. Thanks also to Nikos Zachariádes and the people of the village of Kritsa, as well as to Aris Kefalogiannis of Gaea, all of whom welcomed me into their homes and taught me several life lessons. Nikos Psilakis provided information on olives and oil in Minoan and classical Crete, and generously allowed me to use his photographs; Zoe Nowak of Cretan Quality Agreement contributed great logistical help.
In Israel and the West Bank, heartfelt thanks to Ehud and Dove Netzer for their hospitality in Jerusalem and their companionship and advice elsewhere in the Middle East; Ehud’s tragic death in October 2010 prevented him from reading this book. Thanks to the resolute Father Firas Aridah, parish priest of Aboud, and the quieter but no less impressive Father Ra’ed Abu Sahlieh, parish priest of Taybeh, for sharing their stories of olive-growing and oil-making in two West Bank villages. Thanks also to Elia Sides at Lily Film for his wisdom, companionship, and common sense, and to Yaakov Kalman and his son, M-16s in hand, for security.
In Australia, I’m grateful to Paul Miller of the Australian Olive Association for sharing his immense experience of the olive oil market Down Under, and freelance oil expert Richard Gawel for his unique blend of hard data, sharp analysis, and knee-slapping humor. Carmel Ross and Gordon Smyth at the Benedictine monastery of New Norcia provided an admirable introduction to 150 years of life and oil-making in a monastic community in the far west of Australia.
In South Africa, thanks in particular to Guido and Carlo Costa of F. Costa and Son, “The Olive People,” in Paarl, for their authoritative view of the South African oil market, as well as information on oil chemistry, the dangers of olive pomace oil, and the wiles of South African fraudsters. Andries Rabie at Willow Creek shared his experiences of growing olives at the extreme southern tip of the African continent, and of the spiritual resonance of making olive oil, which Rabie, a fervent Christian, first imagined making in a dream.
In the United States, the energy and the Rolodex of Ed Stolman at the Olive Press made much of my research in California possible, and Deborah Rogers took time out from the crush to answer countless questions, about olive oil and Polish grandmothers alike. During a memorable evening in Lodi, Dino Cortopassi and Brady Whitlow of Corto Olive showed me how agricultural horse sense, top Napa wines, and Texas hold ’em intuition can combine to make excellent oil in California’s Central Valley. Gregg Kelley gave me a look behind the scenes of the secretive and super-efficient California Olive Ranch. During scores of meetings and conversations, Mike Bradley of Veronica Foods has shared his knowledge of world oil—among the most encyclopedic I’ve encountered anywhere—and expressed his conviction, which I now share, that the shortest route to oil quality runs through consumer education, still more than through fighting fraud (though a few arrests would help). I’m grateful to Mike Madison for a stimulating talk (and a much-needed breath of serenity) on Putah Creek, to Mustafa Altuner for the inside story on Los Angeles oil, and to John J. Profaci for insights into the early years—and the future—of extra virgin olive oil in America.
Many specialists in words have contributed to the actual writing of this book. Emily Eakin at The New Yorker guided my early writing about olive oil, and my agent Sarah Chalfant at the Wylie Agency got the project off the ground as a book. Alane Salierno Mason, my editor at W. W. Norton, has earned my heartfelt gratitude for her deft and patient work at every stage of the book, from hewing the first draft out of a formless mass of material to adding progressively finer finishes and polishes in successive manuscripts. Thanks also to Denise Scarfi for her hard work throughout, and to Allegra Huston for a sharp-eyed copyedit.
Thank you to my neighbors, the Olivieri—Gino and Rosetta, Danilo and Silvia, Egidio and Daniela, Iose and Raffaella, Marilena and Piercarlo—who have welcomed me into their family. Thanks to Lyn Mueller and Chad Mueller for unstinting patience, advice, and stiff shots of Monty Python, The Simpsons, and Stephen Colbert. Last, but far from least, I thank on bended knee my wife, Francesca, and children, Nicholas, Jeremy, and Rebecca, who have suffered with my oil obsession for many years now, and have in turn been infected with it . . . hopefully to their lasting good.
Copyright © 2012 by Tom Mueller
Title page image copyright Mark Anderson Photography
“Grasse: The Olive Trees” from Ceremony and Other Poems copyright 1948 and renewed 1976 by Richard Wilbur, reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. “The Peculiar Taste of Wild Olives” by William Oxley was first published in In the Drift of Words (Rockingham Press, 1992). Ritsos, Yannis; Yannis Ritsos, Repetitions, Testimonies, Parentheses. © 1991 Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
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