It's hard for me to believe that three years ago, we were exploring Mediterranean Olive Harvest sites in Turkey, Italy, Catalonia, and Crete. It feels like yesterday. Those experiences and the great joy we found in talking with growers and producers were the fuel for our book, The Chemical Story of Olive Oil: From Grove to Table, that has now been out for 8 months.
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| 2014 Harvest In Tuscany |
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| 2014 Harvest in Crete |
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| 2014 Harvest in Catalonia |
Since that time, we have given dozens of talks, been interviewed on the radio, taught a total of five college classes on three campuses, and have taught several week long summer workshops. Plans are in place to offer courses in Olive Oil Chemistry to retailers in the Finger Lake Area. Two of us were certified as having completed an olive oil tasting course at UC Davis and one of us is on her way to being a member of an Olive Oil Tasting Panel in Turkey.
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| Making Olive Oil Soap - Amherst College |
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| Leading Tastings near Izmir Turkey |
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| Inaugural Zeytin Okulu (Olive Oil School) near Izmir, Turkey |
We have become advocates and spokespersons for olive oil's health benefits and it isn't unusual to get email from former audience members who tell us that we have transformed them into olive oil junkies!
In the lab, close to a half dozen students have worked on or are working on ways to measure the age of the oil, the free fatty acid content (a marker of quality), and the polyphenols so important for the health benefits.
What's next? One of us is working on a translation of the book into Turkish (ZDN), one of us has become a Food Fellow of the Kahn Institute (POH) and another is working on a revision of Chapter 10 of the book to include Climate Change Effects on Olive Oil Production (RAB).
