A Culinary Exploration of New Oils in Paris

Olio Nuovo Days (OND) organizes their second edition of 'Hémisphère Nord' in Paris to announce the newest and finest olive oils of the year.

By Leila Makke
Dec. 1, 2016 11:30 UTC
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Olio Nuovo Days (OND), a bian­nual gas­tro­nomic event, is a gleam­ing con­cept that’s been rais­ing inter­est among olive oil afi­ciona­dos and pro­duc­ers. It was founded in 2015 by Emmanuelle Dechelette, a lover of culi­nary art and a pas­sion­ate busi­ness­woman, who came up with the orig­i­nal idea as a way to announce and bring to pub­lic atten­tion the newest har­vests of the Liquid Gold.

In today’s bustling mar­kets, many con­sumers are con­fused about which olive oil to choose and on which char­ac­ter­is­tics to base their choice (where the olives grew, ripeness, and pro­cess­ing method). But what if they could taste each new har­vest and then decide which suits best their palates and olfac­tory senses? An excit­ing, cre­ative and plea­sur­able con­cept, OND gives us the means to dis­tin­guish dif­fer­ent styles of oils. By tast­ing and by dis­cov­er­ing the dif­fer­ent places and vari­eties from which they orig­i­nate, we are able to know what gives oils their spe­cific styles.
See Also:The best olive oils from France

After a suc­cess­ful first edi­tion held in Paris last year, the sec­ond edi­tion of OND Hémisphère Nord’ will be held on January 17 – 21, 2017, offer­ing an unprece­dented taste expe­ri­ence. In five days, renowned restau­rants will include in their menus a dish inspired by the selected Olios Nuovos.

Through blind tast­ing, each chef will pick his favorite olive oil from a selec­tion of the best pro­duc­tions and then use it as an inspi­ra­tional star ingre­di­ent in his dish. The blind tast­ing allows for an unbi­ased opin­ion mak­ing the chef focus on indi­vid­ual aspects of an oil.

Another inter­est­ing and ludic aspect of this jour­ney are the tast­ings hosted in dif­fer­ent bak­eries around the city. Led by stu­dents of the Superior School of Perfumery of Paris (a part­ner of OND), they will dis­cuss the often neglected olfac­tory dimen­sion to the tast­ing process.

The pre­view of the sec­ond edi­tion was held at a press con­fer­ence on November 28, gath­er­ing many inter­est­ing per­son­al­i­ties at Antoine de Macedo’s charis­matic watch bou­tique in the 6th dis­trict of Paris:

The pres­i­dent of the Agency for the Valorization of Agricultural Products (AVPA), Jean-Emmanuel Jouard, was present at the event. AVPA has been work­ing in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with us on mak­ing this project grow,” said Dechelette. OND has grown in two years. I want to cre­ate a solid rela­tion­ship with pro­duc­ers based on trust and this takes time.”

Also present were Pastry chef and owner of BO, Olivier Haustraete; baker and owner of Panifica, François Brault and many inter­na­tional and local pro­duc­ers, among oth­ers.

From the olive oils exposed were the new har­vests from Anna Marina Gioacchini’s domain, Le Amantine, (Tuscania, Italy). Le Amantine is a range of three extra-vir­gin olive oils (Unico, Taléa, Amantino). The oils dif­fer in their vari­eties (Frantoio, Leccino and Canino) among many other fac­tors. Frantoio, for instance, is known to offer a rich taste rem­i­nis­cent of arti­chokes. Le Amantine’s olio nuovo was bap­tized Raccolto, to be tasted in January 2017.

Mounir Boussetta’s domain, Segermès, (Zaghouan, Tunisia) offers fruity green olive oils from two vari­eties: Chemali (with and with­out pits) and Beldi. Segermès extra-vir­gin olive oil has a fla­vor­some bit­ter taste with an exquis­ite pun­gency. This oil has obtained inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion by AVPA, in Paris.

Local pro­duc­ers Guillaume and Paolo Chabot, father and son, cul­ti­vate organic crops in their domain, Moulin Bonaventure, located in the Valensole plateau of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. They will be par­tic­i­pat­ing for the first time in January.

Olive oil afi­ciona­dos and curi­ous con­sumers should save the dates. The list of the selected restau­rants and bak­eries will be pub­lished on OND’s web­site by the end of December.



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