Saturday, March 14, 2020

Front Cover on Hürriyet Books and Art

 Google translation of the following article at: https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/kitap-sanat/zeytin-dalini-selaleden-almak-41467438
 Taking the olive branch from the waterfall

"The Story of Olive Oil from Table Olive to Table", written by Zeynep Delen Nircan, Patricia O’Hara and Richard Blatchly, explains the transformation of a seed into a seedling, a tree and the olive grain transformation into olive oil. A reference, a bedside book for many people who are interested in olives and olive oil.

“To the waterfall / fallen / branch of olive; / celalli / celalisin / cellali” Cemal Duraya
My real acquaintance with olives and olive oil was thanks to my wife's grandmother three years after I started olive cultivation as a profession and livelihood.
Maybe, because his whole life was spent next to an olive garden / in the olive groves, his grandmother, who now looks like an olive tree with pleasure, sorrow, wisdom and trust, looked at my swollen finger and asked why I did not apply olive oil.
From that moment on, I had the opportunity to see how olive oil is a very big part of life in the parts of Anatolia that live in olive oil. Unlike the geographies where any agricultural product is dominant, olives used to associate everything, that is, everything, from their livelihood to their wounds, from troubles to mouth flavors, from weddings to their children's school expenses.
Despite all this intertwinedness, I was surprised to see that many people are extremely unfamiliar with the history, technique, world-wide industry and future importance of olive oil, if we do not count a serious audience that has devoted this life. Olives, who are considered as one of the homeland of the olive tree, strongly oppose cold squeezing because they sometimes miss their abundance and give little product, sometimes they use it unlimitedly without knowing the fertilizer and the medicine, as if they 'kill them with love' and insistently claim that the olive oil of their garden is 'zero acid'.
However, in recent years, perhaps with the better appreciation of its economic value, the importance and the material and spiritual investments that young generation olives and olive oil producers, cooperatives and non-governmental organizations give to the technical and academic dimension of olive oil issue make us more hopeful about the future.
The book 'The Story of Olive Oil from Olive Oil to Table', published by Zeynep Delen Nircan, Patricia O’Hara and Richard Blatchly, gives the right to the subtitle in this sense: 'What every producer and consumer should know'.
The book describes the transformation of a seed to seedlings, trees, olive oil to olive oil, the journey of an olive grain, its 'circulation' in all its details. While watching the technical and chemical process of olive oil, 'golden liquid', we witness olive and olive oil experiences from almost every part of the world.

A REFERENCE, BEDSIDE BOOK
Transferring these experiences makes this book a reference and a bedside book for many people who are professionally interested in olive and olive oil. It is very valuable not only for people from the olive industry and agriculture, but also for everyone who is interested in this field, not only for the people from the olive industry and agriculture, but also for explaining all the principles and requirements of olive oil, which has become a very important sector in the world, by classifying it as an academic, and in a whole.
Along with this technical information, the historical and epic narrative of olive oil and its importance in heavenly religions allow us to read this academic research with pleasure. In addition, we see once again that the benefits and limitless use of olive oil are so wide that even those who know more or less are astounded.
Moreover, I care very much that the daily information about the olive tree, which is blessed as "immortal tree" and "wise tree" every time, is not given by being magazated in a way that contrasts with this blessing. The book says in many places, "Immortal wisdom can be explained like this."
In the preface to the book 'A Conquered People: Iran', Hamid Dabashi, the author of the book, says: “When you finish this book, you will learn more about Iran than many people who introduce themselves as an Iranian expert.” We can say the same for this book. When you read the book of Delen Nircan, O’Hara and Blatchly, you will have much more information than many people who are strongly interested in possible olives. It is hoped that with this type of research, the olive branch is taken from the waterfall where it falls and our country gets a place among the respected olive countries of the world.

(Hürriyet is the 3rd most sold newspaper in Turkey, selling over 200 thousand copies a day.)