OLIVE OILS AND HEALTH 72 4.1 Extra virgin olive oil, the backbone of the Mediterranean diet Historically, extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) has played a key role in the Mediterranean diet and is one the factors most responsible for its beneficial properties. In contrast to other vegetable oils which undergo a refinement process, EVOO is a natural olive juice. Whilst its major characteristics include fruity, bitter, and spicy flavours, there is also a broad spectrum of aromas, tastes, and colours for use in gastronomy. Therefore, it is recommended to use the EVOO, the best of the olive juices, with the best organoleptic quality and greatest health properties (Figure 4.1). Figure 4.1. In the Mediterranean basin there is a broad spectrum of olive varieties. They represent a wide palette of aromas, flavours, and colours. Photography: Francisco Lorenzo Tapia. When revising the recipes of any Mediterranean country, olive juice is the most frequently used food, the gastronomic blood of this area. A fact that was pointed out by the first documented gourmet, Marco Gavio Apicio (1st c AD; the era of the Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius), in his ‘De Re Coquinaria’. In this extraordinary collection of four hundred and ninety-nice recipes, olive oil was present in more than three hundred. One of his most celebrated sentences was “with nine olives per day, man can overcome any fatality”, a compliment to olives. Concerning frying, he referred to an “immersion in a bath of olive oil for foods like fish and vegetables”. Averroes (11 c AD), a Hispano-Arabic physician in his “Universal Treatise of Medicine” he referred to the fact that that olive oil “if extracted from ripe and healthy olives, and without disturbance of its properties, can be perfectly digested by humans”. He also
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