Cooking School in Spain Aims to Promote EVOO Usage and Benefits

“We will spread out through the world the knowl­edge of the ben­e­fits of cook­ing with EVOO”, said José Antonio Amérigo, chair­man and founder of The Extra Virgin Olive Oil International Cooking Academy (ICA) a culi­nary insti­tu­tion offi­cially pre­sented in Benalmadena (Málaga, Spain) at the end of November.

Born to pro­mote world­wide the Mediterranean diet and the bio­log­i­cal ben­e­fits of EVOO, The Academy takes on two tasks: to teach cook­ing with extra vir­gin olive oil and pro­vide a sci­en­tific basis for its char­ac­ter­is­tics and appli­ca­tions in cook­ing.

The first sem­i­nars and work­shops, con­ducted in English and Spanish, will begin January 16 at the Finca de los Caballeros, in Benalmádena, on the world-famous Costa del Sol.

“We are going to teach cook­ing to the cooks,” Amérigo explained to Olive Oil Times. He con­ceived the project, he said, because ​“cooks do not cook with extra vir­gin olive oil” and because the use of the prod­uct too often goes no fur­ther than salad dress­ing. ​“I would like EVOO to be used as the offi­cial fat for cook­ing in homes and restau­rants,” he said.

ICA courses are aimed at kitchen pro­fes­sion­als: restau­rants, food com­pa­nies, other cook­ing schools, nutri­tion­ists and health author­i­ties, but par­tic­u­larly, to chefs, whose pop­u­lar­ity makes them ​“great advo­cates” and gives them the power to pro­mote a health­ier diet.

Amérigo, who is also pres­i­dent of Oleocanthal International Society, is con­vinced that, after the fight against tobacco, salt and sug­ary drinks, the next health cru­sade will be ​“against trans fats, but­ter and mar­garine — and there we might have a golden oppor­tu­nity. The work of the Academy is headed in that direc­tion.”

In addi­tion to health pro­fes­sion­als, ICA has two olive oil-pas­sion­ate chef-instruc­tors: Daniel García Peinado, the teacher for the first courses, is a cre­ator of new dishes and EVOO ambas­sador for culi­nary tech­niques; and Firo Vázquez, owner and chef of ​“El Olivar” restau­rant, the pro­ducer of Olivar de of Moratalla olive oil, and a widely-rec­og­nized as pro­mo­tor of extra vir­gin olive oil.

Scientific basis for cook­ing with AOVE

The Academy also aims to expand sci­en­tific knowl­edge on the uses of extra vir­gin olive oil in the kitchen. For exam­ple, by study­ing how phe­nols in EVOO are trans­mit­ted to cooked food, and dis­card­ing old prej­u­dices, such as the belief that other fats are prefer­able for cer­tain culi­nary tech­niques like fry­ing.

Amérigo does­n’t think extra vir­gin olive oil ​“is get­ting due recog­ni­tion for its phe­no­lic com­po­nents, which are what makes the dif­fer­ence. It has the best qual­i­ties of smoke point, antioxidants…it is bet­ter than any other veg­etable oil and, of course, but­ter and mar­garine. All that is based on sci­en­tific evi­dence”.

ICA’s advi­sory board includes researchers and health experts from the United States, France, Australia and Spain. ​“We have done a big doc­u­men­ta­tion work, and we have cre­ated a small lab linked to the Granada University Foundation,” explained the pres­i­dent of the Academy to Olive Oil Times.

An International mis­sion

The Academy will not only per­form activ­i­ties at the Benalmadena head­quar­ters; the goal is to bring train­ing to places with a pos­i­tive atti­tude towards health inno­va­tion, such as Australia, Japan, Russia or the European Union.

But, above all, ICA wants to focus on the United States, where, accord­ing to Amérigo, they are increas­ingly aware that ​“they have to change their diet and we can do a very good job because they believe in inno­va­tion.”

The Academy already has col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ments with Drexel University in Philadelphia and The Culinary Academy of Melbourne (Australia), and has begun affil­i­a­tion processes with cook­ing schools in sev­eral coun­tries.

• The Extra Virgin Olive Oil International Cooking Academy


• Sociedad Andaluza Oleocantal