Olives, got EVOO?

Olives and olive oil is big business. The three biggest producers being Spain, Italy and Greece. The fierce competition can bring about the worst of human behavior, according to this New Yorker article.

I didn't know that EVOO is now in the Oxford American College Dictionary: Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I got curious when the acronym showed up on the grocery receipt.

Since I have a partial Greek background, and having wholeheartedly enjoyed Greek olives, I decided to be on the lookout for Greek olive varieties in California. I'll admit to being biased. Come to find out it's not easy to find in a place where ancestors from Spain and Italy sets the olive standard.

The cultivation of olive trees in the United States is centered mainly in California, the monk Junipero Serra introduced it in the middle of the 18th century during the founding of the Franciscan missions. The Manzanilla table olive and the Mission variety are some that seem popular for California olive oil. There are some three hundred small artisan olive oil growers and producers in California. The biggest packer of olives in the United States (and second largest in the world) is also based here, Lindsay Olive Co.

For Greek table olives, the standard is the big and black Kalamata olive, and for the very best in greek style olive oil it's the smaller but high oil-yielding Koroneiki olive that is king. It seems to be slowly growing in popularity in California.

The people behind the Olive Press in Sonoma, (Sonoma county's first olive mill) seem to offer a California Koroneiki oil, I would really like to visit them.

Not a local olive oil, but still interesting- I found a Greek dermatologist, Dr. Panagotacos, here in San Francisco, decided not to grow Koroneiki here but rather in his ancestral land on the island of Crete, and sell his Lykovouno brand here in the Bay area. Perhaps I've driven past his olive groves on my visits to Crete...

Here are some links on the subject:

• My current olive oil: McEvoy Ranch -popular flavored oils
• A definitive guide on U.S. olive oil, Oliveoilsource
• "How to taste olive oil" (on 101 cookbooks) -a fun read