Why One Good Extra Virgin Olive Oil in Your Kitchen Is Not Enough

Summary

Having dif­fer­ent kinds of extra vir­gin olive oil in the kitchen, din­ing room, and restau­rants is impor­tant for vari­ety, opti­mal food pair­ings, and dis­tinct pur­poses, as empha­sized by var­i­ous experts in the field. Different olive oils pair well with dif­fer­ent foods, sim­i­lar to how wines are paired, and can be cho­sen based on per­sonal taste and the final taste desired for the dish. Olive oils with vary­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics can be used for dif­fer­ent pur­poses, such as sal­ads, cook­ing, fry­ing, or fin­ish­ing dishes, allow­ing for a wide range of choices and exper­i­men­ta­tion in the kitchen.

First, let us assume we need extra vir­gin olive oil. We need it for the unique accents it adds to our food and for its antiox­i­dant, anti-inflam­ma­tory, anti-can­cer, and car­dio­pro­tec­tive effects. But why do we need dif­fer­ent kinds of it in our kitchens, din­ing rooms, and restau­rants? We need them for vari­ety, opti­mal food pair­ings, and dis­tinct pur­poses.

“There are lots of dif­fer­ent taste buds out there,” as Maria Guadagno Katsetos of Loutraki Oil Company empha­sizes, ​“so we need lots of good, dif­fer­ent deli­cious olive oils to fit those needs. One olive oil is never enough.”

As William Cowper wrote in his poem, The Task, ​“Variety’s the very spice of life, That gives it all its fla­vor.” You may not think of extra vir­gin olive oil as a spice, and some of it is more fruity than spicy, but a good EVOO will cer­tainly add its own unique accent to just about every dish you eat. (Yes, that includes desserts.)
See Also:The World’s Best Olive Oils

Ioanna Damianaki of Nature Blessed points out that ​“it is good for every­one to know the olive oils of all the dif­fer­ent areas in Greece,” for exam­ple. Once we start sam­pling them, we will dis­cover a won­der­ful array of fla­vors even in this small coun­try, thanks to the numer­ous micro­cli­mates, olive vari­eties, har­vest times, and cul­ti­va­tion and pro­duc­tion meth­ods used. (It is much more than a ques­tion of the region.)

Greek extra vir­gin olive oils can range from quite mild and fruity to con­sid­er­ably spicier. Imagine, then, how much more vari­ety we can enjoy when we add olive oils from the rest of the world!

Different olive oils pair well with dif­fer­ent foods

We can think of olive oils as we think of wines, except that most of us do not drink our olive oil in a glass. Giovanni Bianchi of Argali advises that olive oils, like wines, should be cho­sen to pro­duce the ideal ​“com­bi­na­tion with the food you want to con­sume.”

As Giorgos Karitsiotis of Kasell reminds us, ​“each type of olive oil has a dif­fer­ent tast­ing pro­file which can be com­bined with dif­fer­ent types of food.” Panos Kloutsiniotis of Ladolea adds that the inten­sity of olive oils also varies, so our choice of olive oil should depend on ​“the final taste that we want to give the dish.”

The North American Olive Oil Association pro­vides a sum­mary of pop­u­lar pair­ings of del­i­cate, medium inten­sity, and robust extra vir­gin olive oils with cer­tain milder and more strongly fla­vored foods, with the inten­sity of the olive oil typ­i­cally match­ing the inten­sity of the dish. As a start­ing point, these are use­ful sug­ges­tions, and Olive Oil Times also offers a pair­ing app.

Moreover, Bianchi sug­gests, ​“the per­sonal taste of the con­sumer” can play a role in olive oil selec­tion. ​“In an ideal sit­u­a­tion, every­one should be able to sea­son the food on their plate with the oil that best fits their taste (so not nec­es­sar­ily with the clas­sic com­bi­na­tions — del­i­cate oil for fish, etc.).” In other words, feel free to exper­i­ment with an assort­ment of EVOOs and make your own choices.

Different olive oils are bet­ter for dif­fer­ent pur­poses

Emmanouil Karpadakis of Terra Creta explains that ​“a good extra vir­gin is suit­able for most uses in the kitchen; how­ever, you may want a very good and fruity oil for the salad, while you have a sim­ple medium to low organolep­tic pro­file oil for cook­ing or fry­ing” — that is, an extra vir­gin olive oil with a milder fla­vor.

In addi­tion to organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics, Nikos Sakellaropoulos reminds us that some olive oils are organic or fla­vored, while oth­ers are not, and some offer more health ben­e­fits than oth­ers (although all EVOOs are very healthy). Having ​“dif­fer­ent types of olive oil allows you to do more, and mainly use the right olive oil for each occa­sion.” Which one is right will depend on your pri­or­i­ties as well as your pref­er­ences: health ben­e­fits, organic prod­ucts, blend­ing fla­vors, or adding a bold fla­vor accent when stew­ing, sautéing, fry­ing, bak­ing, or fin­ish­ing dishes.

“For exam­ple,” Sakellaropoulos explains, ​“only extra vir­gin olive oil of the high­est qual­ity should be used for fry­ing, due to its higher resis­tance to high-tem­per­a­ture degra­da­tion, com­pared to sun­flower seed oils and cheap olive oils.”

“Finally,” con­cludes Sakellaropoulos, ​“fla­vored olive oils, when cooked, lose most of their aroma and fla­vor; thus they should be used in low-tem­per­a­ture cook­ing or as raw food ingre­di­ents.” Many also pre­fer to save the finest un-fla­vored extra vir­gin olive oils for fin­ish­ing dishes, in order to fully appre­ci­ate their unique aro­mas and tastes.

So allow your­self a wide range of olive oil choices, as you allow your­self a vari­ety of drink options. Select sev­eral of your favorites, and exper­i­ment in your kitchen and at your table. The results may sur­prise you.