My thoughts on Olive Oil

Olive Oil in Italian in known as 'Olio d'oliva', and some people refer it as 'Liquid gold'. In places like Italy, Olive Oil is considered something you buy from a reliable source, someone that you know, and mostly locals. I guess this has been a tradition for hundreds of years. I also think that people have a sense of comfortableness when purchasing olive oil from the local supplier, and in some cases a sense of pride. As I think about my Italian heritage, I think about the pride that people have in their cooking, and in particular, the pride that they have when they can cook with products from their own town, it just makes their food 'taste better'!
I find olive oil quite amazing. It's been around since 5,000 BC, first in ancient Greece and then in countries like Israel and Egypt, and then eventually in Italy by the eight century BC. It was the Romans that planted olive trees everywhere throughout their empire. It's so evident today, when you drive through all the towns in Italy, olive trees everywhere. In particular, I remember driving through Soriano up to a small town where my mother comes from, Dasa'. I was surrounded by olive trees, so green, so lush, and so much character. Mum tells me about the days when she was younger and the town's people would pick the olives and would press them to make oil, then marinate them in flavours known to the Mediterranean. It was simple food, food for farmers and townspeople. Simple food that today massive corporations have made billions out of, simple food it was once - but now so 'gourmet' to foodies all over the world. And it's really been just over the last twenty years or so that everyone outside of the Mediterranean countries started talking about the health-giving properties in olive oil. It's now known that good extra-virgin olive oil is very rich in antioxidants that can help fight bad cholesterol, and help prevent heart attacks and cancer. And believe it or not that many years ago champion athletes at the Olympic Games were presented with olive oil instead of medals! That's how precious olive oil has been considered!