The Passionate Olive (2 page)
Read The Passionate Olive Online
Authors: Carol Firenze
67)
USE IT TO ENHANCE SEXUAL PLEASURE
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pregnancy and Baby Care with Olive Oil
68)
ALLEVIATE AND LESSEN THE APPEARANCE OF STRETCH MARKS
69)
SOOTHE NIPPLES WHEN BREAST-FEEDING
70)
SOOTHE BABY’S DIAPER RASH
71)
ALLEVIATE BABY’S CRADLE CAP
72)
MAKE YOUR OWN NATURALLY SAFE BABY WIPES
73)
GIVE YOUR BABY A HEALTHY, INVIGORATING MASSAGE WITH OLIVE OIL
74)
MOISTURIZE BABY’S NOSTRILS
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Care and Feeding of Your Pets with Olive Oil
75)
SHINE YOUR PET’S COAT AND KEEP YOUR PET HEALTHY
76)
SLOW THE SHEDDING PROCESS
77)
PREVENT HAIRBALLS IN CATS
78)
MASSAGE YOUR PET
79)
REMOVE TICKS
80)
SOOTHE EARS
81)
LUBRICATE THE SKIN ON YOUR PET’S NOSE
82)
LUBRICATE YOUR DOG’S PAWS
83)
GIVE YOUR PET A “PETICURE”
84)
REMOVE “ICE BALLS” FROM ANIMAL FUR
CHAPTER NINE
Olive Oil Uses in Ritual, Religion, and Folk Magic
85)
ANOINT DURING BAPTISM AND CONFIRMATION
86)
ANOINT THE SICK AND DYING
87)
ANOINT DURING THE ORDINATION OF PRIESTS
88)
CONSECRATE ALTARS, CHURCHES, CHALICES, AND BELLS
89)
BURN IT IN ALTAR LAMPS
90)
FOSTER SUPERSTITIONS
91)
USE IN MAGICAL POTIONS
CHAPTER TEN
Parties and Special Occasions with
Olive Oil
92)
ORGANIZE AN OLIVE OIL-TASTING PARTY
93)
host a
“prova del pane”
party
94)
PREPARE FAVORS FOR WEDDINGS
95)
GO TO AN OLIVE OIL-WRESTLING COMPETITION
96)
CREATE OLIVE GIFT BASKETS
97)
BUY OR MAKE FLAVORED OLIVE OILS
98)
JOIN AN OLIVE OIL CLUB
99)
LEARN OLIVE OIL TRIVIA TO AMAZE YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS
100)
BYOOO (BRING YOUR OWN OLIVE OIL)—BECAUSE EVERY OCCASION IS SPECIAL
DRIZZLE IT ON … USING OLIVE OIL IN ITS RAW STATE
USE INFUSED OR FLAVORED OILS … FOR DIPPING OR DRIZZLING
ROASTING—A DRIZZLE IT ON … VARIATION
MAKE SAUCES WITH OLIVE OIL
MARINATE WITH OLIVE OIL
SAUTÉ/FRY WITH OLIVE OIL
BAKE WITH OLIVE OIL
USE OLIVE OIL INSTEAD OF BUTTER
Preserve with It, Mist It, Freeze It, Store It
PRESERVE FOOD IN OLIVE OIL
MIST IT/SPRAY IT
FREEZE OLIVE OIL FOR A BUTTERLIKE SUBSTITUTE
STORE OLIVE OIL—REMEMBER “OLIO NUOVO, VINO VECCHIO”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Let’s Hear from You!
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Olive Oil Usage Guidelines
Suggested Types of Olive Oil for 100 Uses
Suggested Types of Olive Oil for Cooking
Specialty Stores for Olive Oil and
Olive Oil Products
Olive Oil Mills and Producers in California
Olive Oil From Italy, Spain, Greece, and France
FOREWORD
An Excerpt from
A Thousand Days in Tuscany
by Marlena De Blasi
In her memoir
A Thousand Days in Venice
, Marlena De Blasi arrives in Italy as an American tourist, marries the man of her dreams, and makes Venice her new home. In the sequel,
A Thousand Days in Tuscany
, she and her husband pursue the country life in a small Tuscan village. Here they attend the annual olive harvest, experience firsthand one of Italy’s most beautiful and sacred traditions, and passionately discuss the elixir of the gods.
And now, plumped three meters up into the saddle of a hundred-year-old tree, my bundled torso pitched about in the gasping breath of early December, my wish is granted. I’m harvesting olives.
Ears tingling under my old felt cloche, my fingertips are white with cold as they slide in and out of Barlozzo’s gloves.… My nose runs. And all I do is send curses upon
Athena. It was she who, posturing with Poseidon for dominion, sprung the first olive tree from the stones of the Acropolis, proclaiming it the fruit of civility. A fruit like no other. She said the flesh of an olive was bitter as hate and scant as true love, that it asked work to soften it, to squeeze the golden-green blood from it. The olive was like life and that the fight for it made its oil sacred, that it would soothe and feed a man from birth until death. And the goddess’s oil became elixir. Soft, slow drops of it nourished ewe’s milk cheese; a ladle of it strengthened wild onions stewed over a twig fire. Burned in a clay lamp, oil illuminated the night, and warmed in the hands of a healer, it caressed the skin of a tired man and a birthing woman. Even now, when a baby is born in the Tuscan hills, he is washed in olive oil, modest doses burnished into every crease and crevice of him. On his deathbed, a man is anointed with the same oil, cleansing him in yet another way. And after he dies, a candle is lit and oil is warmed and kneaded over him, a farewell bath—the oil having accompanied him on all his journeys, just as Athena had promised.…
The olive mill is small, servicing only the local farmers or
padroni
, each of whom might have three or four hundred trees, less, perhaps, as Barlozzo’s family does. The farmers often help each other to harvest, but there the sharing stops. Every farmer wants to be assured his olives—coddled and cared for better than anyone else’s olives, harvested only at the moment of perfection—are pressed and returned to him as the jade fortune he deserves more than his neighbors do.… During what can be hours and hours of waiting for his own moments at the crusher,
il frantolano
, the olive mill owner, ministers to his clients. The mill is built for business: cement blocks and corrugated roofing, a
dirt floor in part, smooth white tiles paving the machinery areas. Yet, in the end farthest from the fray, there is a great fireplace.… The farmers keep watch over their waiting olives, breaking the vigil with ritual refreshment. One whacks off a hunk of bread, roasts it on both sides over the embers, rubs it then with the garlic-rosemary branch, carries it, in his hand and with some ceremony, to the grunting press, and holds it under the spigot for a few seconds to let drip a thick sort of cream composed of the crushed but not yet pressed fruit. One carries his treasure back to the fire, to the demijohn, filling his tumbler with the thick, chewy wine of the countryside.…
And so we sit together, the farmers and their families and I, as if in the waiting room of a wizard. And all we talk of is olive oil.…
At one point, looking to build a bridge between the old world and the new, I open discourse about America, saying that the medical community advises the consumption of extra virgin olive oil to help lower the evil side of blood cholesterol. To a person, the circle looks at me with something near to mercy, and so I scurry on with the news of the American posture that touts the Mediterranean diet. “Constructed as it is of the freshest fruits and vegetables, complex carbohydrates, freshwater fish, sea fish, and a modicum of animal flesh—all of it laced with generous pourings of just-pressed olive oil and honest red wine—many American doctors call it the earth’s healthiest eating plan.”
Under darting gazes and fidgeting hands, I continue. “Of course, everyone knows that eating this way discourages heart disease and obesity, chases free radicals, and promotes longevity,” I say, but there is no one even pretending to hear me.…
The mill owner has wandered over to the fire and caught the last of my feeble delivery.
“Ah, signora. Magari se tutto il mondo era d’accordo con noi
. How I wish that all the world agreed with us. Here people die of heart attacks, but most often in their beds and long past their nintieth birthdays.”
Chuckles bustle through the crowd. “But you have some experience with olive oil. I can see it,” he says.
In reflex, my hand reaches up to touch my face. Are there telltale marks of last evening’s supper?
“No, no,
signora
,” says a man, perhaps the oldest one among the group. “There is no stain. He refers to your complexion. You have what we call here
pelle di luna
, skin like the moon. Your skin is illuminated.
È abbastanza comune qui
, it’s fairly common here among the country women. It’s the light that comes from eating olive oil all one’s life. But is there olive oil in America?”
Olive Oil Milestones
