Hi Luigi,
first of all thank you for agreeing to answer some of my questions. When one has the opportunity to interview a recognized and undisputed authority in a given field as you are in the field of olive oil, it takes a kind of frenzy and one would want to ask a thousand questions. However, I don't think this may be the best way to go. Your professional experiences are so many and so qualifying, that talking about it all risks becoming scattershot for you and for those who read us. I therefore defer knowledge of all your work to a concise fact sheet at the end of the interview and to your website www.luigicaricato.net and instead I would like to focus the sense of this interview of ours on your latest and titanic feat: Olio Officina food festival that was held in Milan on January 28 and 29, 2012, in the splendid setting of the Palazzo dei Giureconsulti in Piazza dei Mercanti. (for those unfamiliar with Milan, flanked by Piazza del Duomo). Having the good fortune to have been invited to attend, I was able to see for myself the great success of your initiative, how active and important the sector of high quality extra virgin olive oil producers is in our country, and how much interest this topic arouses among the media and operators in the world of the most qualified catering and health. The first questions therefore are somewhat obvious, but necessary.
Why did you feel the need to start the first edition of Olio Officina Food Festival?
Because there was, and still is, a cultural vacuum, with a few rare exceptions.
How long had you been nurturing this project?
For at least 20 years, but realizing such a project before would not have been followed up. Now yes, the time is almost ripe.
How did you put together the economic resources and participation? In short, can you tell us in brief about the whole project?
I announced my intentions and fortunately without difficulty there were those who believed in my project. I was supported by companies, consortia and even some individuals from outside the oil world. It has been a choral work of which I have been the conductor of an orchestra that still wants to play new music. I like about this experience that it all started from the bottom, from an idea that became reality. I put my soul into it.
The two days were very intense and full of interventions of various kinds and expressions of very diverse realities, and in this I felt a need from you not to be elitist in your choice of participations. I understood that you did not want to bring into the festival only super experts and "solons" of the subject, but practitioners at various levels of specialization, sometimes even simple enthusiasts, but nevertheless very competent. Interventions that could convey how rich, multifaceted and full of amateur and professional opportunities is the magnificent world of cultivation, production or simpler use of extra virgin olive oil. I had the feeling that you, as a skilled journalist and communications practitioner, wanted to focus attention on the real market opportunities that this segment can produce both domestically and internationally.
I therefore ask you a question that I understand is not easy to answer. Do you believe that Italian extra virgin olive oil, can become the new leading voice of Made in Italy in the agricultural sector and have in the coming years an economic development and fame similar to the one that quality Italian wine has managed to gain in the last 30 years?
The answer unfortunately is not difficult. The Italian olive oil sector lives closed in on itself. It is little exploratory. It no longer has the propulsive force it once had, because it only plays defense. The limitation of our sector is to remain strongly anchored in the past, living by reflected light. However, I am not pessimistic. There are a few groups of courageous enlightened entrepreneurs who have the courage to dare, although there is a general lack of a country system to support them. Those who are committed and moved by passion succeed brilliantly in doing their part. Great positive examples exist, then. What is missing, if anything, is a choral approach, a national style that allows us to look ahead with fresh eyes and a great sense of pride.
The program of the festival can be found on your website, but I ask you: among the many talks, and all of them really very interesting, were there any that struck you the most? Any sentences, reflections or happy insights that are enlightening for the industry?
Everything I liked about Olio Officina Food Festival. That's why I conceived it in a polyphonic sense, so that all possible voices could be heard. And all did in fact speak, evoking a new vision of oil, even a holistic one. What emerged was that oil is not just pure commodity, but it becomes, through this new approach, a cultural product, so much so that a bottle of extra virgin olive oil should be displayed as if it were the cover of a book. It is a work of culture, there is the creative genius behind it of the olive grower and the miller, of those who work to cultivate the olives to extract the oil in purity. Now the next step, the one that is expected and called for, is to make restaurateurs and chefs, as well as consumers, participate in this creative act. Oil lives an autonomous life of its own when it enters the kitchen, it takes on a new soul by meeting other food raw materials. That is why it is important that through the festival a new sensibility is acquired that leads to employ oil in a more conscious and mneo habitual way.
Do you think you will give stable value to this event?
Yes, Olio Officina Food Festival will be an annual event. The mother event will take place every year at the end of January in Milan, but then over the months there will be intermediate traveling stages, including abroad.
Will you change anything from the 2012 formula? Do you already have any additional novelties in mind?
Changing is always in my line, I don't like to replicate. The format will be the same, but each time rethought with a new thread. Let's not forget that the subtitle is "condiments for the palate and the mind." There will be more than just extra virgin olive oil. I will give space to all seasonings, enhancing them, because they are ingredients that play on par with other food raw materials.
Now I ask you a question and also a request as a consumer: how can we tell if the extra virgin olive oil we are consuming is really of quality?
It is not easy, consumption habits somehow condition us even unconsciously. However, quality is also an objective reference. If the oil smells bad, there is no excuse: it smells bad. If it's rancid, it's rancid; and so if it's oxidized, or has other unpleasant sensations, quality also refers to chemical and physical compositional parameters, as well as a very precise sensory and nutritional profile. Only the consumer, but also the chef, do not always understand the true value of quality. That's why I thought of a specific section within the festival, with a sensory area where it was possible to taste the oil through the guidance of expert tasters who explained its nature and ways to appreciate its goodness.
Can you provide all visitors to your blog, a decalogue to decode the information on the product label?
The label is simple. There is nothing to explain. It matters to go beyond the label. It is only through tasting that true quality can be discovered. The direct approach to the product is the real way forward. The label is of little use, those who want to cheat the consumer are deceiving them by putting a label seocndo the law. Instead, one must understand what is inside the bottle, and discover the real goodness. Here, in the future I envision a point of sale different from the current ones, where you can smell and taste the oil before you buy it. A bit like what is done in perfumeries, where precisely you can try a perfume and compare them all before proceeding with the purchase. Even food taste implies a personalized adhesion, tailored to our taste buds.
Is thelabel of extra virgin olive oil difficult to interpret even for a professional?
Thelabel as it is is plethoric. There are unnecessary claims on it. If I were a legislator I would put only the essentials. Generic and meaningless claims such as "cold extracted" or "first pressing" are trivialities. Today all oils are cold extracted, there is no such thing as hot extraction, just as there is no such thing as second or third pressing.
What are the items to which it is essential to pay close attention in order to be sure that we are consuming an oil of real quality?
The only voice that needs to be heard is that of conscience. An oil intended for our food cannot be bought cheaply, at below cost. Better to be wary, if you are really smart and have solid ethics, you need to become aware of unforgivable mistakes. First prices are a sign of utter stupidity. Does it make sense that an oil that is supposed to keep our body's engine running costs less, much less, than any stupid mineral oil used to oil car engines? Are we really stupid enough to spend much more on an oil intended for automobiles? Evidently yes.
Another and last question as a consumer: don't you think that the knowledge of Italian extra virgin olive oil with all its facets, its different territorialities, its thousands of scents, such varied flavors and intensities and so many different uses has the need for places of knowledge like beer gardens with tasting or wine bars are? I mean tasting places with quick snacks where one can begin to understand how to use an oil, how to pair it to enhance it, how to include it raw or in cooking...in short, don't you think the time has come to help the end consumer a little more also to get to grips with the subject ?
I have been working on this for years. There is a lack of cooperation from those who run public venues. Years ago I invented at trade shows the presence of an Oil Bar. It was a great success. We should bring that experience to restaurants and eateries. I would enhance country cooking in agritourisms, but often times agritourisms do not prove up to the task. Beyond that, I am working to make sure that we create something new to offer in the coming months. I have invented "oil-centric restaurants," which I point out to my readers from time to time, but I need people who believe in them and are willing to accept the risk of experimenting. If anyone is interested in such a virtuous path, please come forward. Culture moves the economy, it is not the other way around.
Luigi Caricato, writer, oleologist, journalist, is director and creator of "Olio Officina Food Festival." He is the author of several books dedicated to extra virgin olive oil, including the novel L'olio della conversione (Besa, 2005). With the "Olio Officina" project, both through the blog and other initiatives planned in the coming months, he aims to develop a workshop of ideas open to all, focused on the relationship between condiments and other food raw materials, but also to give rise to a new renaissance for oil. His most recent book publications are Olio di lago, for Mondadori Editions (2010), and Olio: crudo e cotto, for Tecniche Nuove (2012).
Interview edited by Monica Palla
