A little ditty about olive oil

EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL

You know wine: different grapes, different countries, different tastes, aromas, and textures. It’s the same with Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO).

Like wine, an EVOO’s flavor reflects the varieties of olives from which it is made, where and how those olives grow, and the way that the oil is made. Like wines, extra virgin olive oils vary in purpose, too. Some are soft and mellow, while others are pungent and peppery. Hence, some work better as a medium for cooking, while others taste best when used apart from cooking, as a condiment, just for adding flavor.

Marczyk Fine Foods offers EVOOs in a range of tastes and textures to be tasteful partners to the range of your culinary needs.

SOFT AND MELLOW

These EVOOs resemble melted butter, with aromas and tastes of nuts like macadamia or raw cashew. They’re ripe Golden Delicious apple to other EVOO’s arugula. Many southern French or Provençal EVOOs are Soft and Mellows, as are those from Italy’s Liguria. Some California EVOOs are this way, too. Use these EVOOs just as you’d use butter: for drizzling on cooked fish, for instance, or for a quick sauté of mushrooms or vegetables.

FRUITY AND SMOOTH

These EVOOs are a bridge between the Soft and Mellows and the next group, those that are Pungent and Peppery. They’re easy-going and buttery, but a taste of them often finishes with a snap, as if you were eating ripe avocado with watercress or cilantro. In the kitchen and on the table, these are versatile EVOOs. They come from many different sorts of olives, and from many places, from Greece to Spain to California. Use them for baking (olive oil cake!), for sautés, or as a dip for bread. They’re great for salad dressings or as a “sauce” for grilled vegetables or meats.

PUNGENT AND PEPPERY

These robust, even fiery, EVOOs play a special role with food. While they taste like liquid green olive, their piquant bite or “finish” on the palate is like eating a leaf of sorrel or arugula. As such, use these oils sparingly but deliciously — precisely for their intense flavors, as a brush on grilled lamb, for example, or for a drizzle on slices of summer tomato. They’re certainly not for frying or sautés and even may be too much in a salad dressing, but they are the great condiment of the EVOO family. Many Tuscan oils are Pungent and Peppery, as are other Italians, many Spanish EVOOs, and several from California and Greece.