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Olive oil, an essential part of culture and cuisine in Greece, is becoming a luxury good because of skyrocketing prices, the president of one of Greece’s major olive producers’ union said Saturday. The wholesale price of olive oil in Crete, one of the country’s biggest olive oil-producing regions, is currently around €8.40 ($9) per liter, which means its retail price would be around €12 to €15 during the winter, Myron Chiletzakis, vice president of the Heraklion Agricultural Cooperative (EASH) told major broadcaster OpenTV. Also speaking to public broadcaster ERT, he argued that 80 percent of the country’s olive oil production...

Archeologists excavating at the Chalcolithic site of Tel Tsaf in the Jordan Valley, Israel, have discovered one of the earliest examples of fruit tree cultivation worldwide, demonstrating that olive (Olea europaea) and common fig (Ficus carica) horticulture was practiced as early as 7,000 years ago.Today, the olive is considered the most prominent and probably the economically most important fruit tree of the Mediterranean Basin.Cultivation caused its distribution to expand into areas otherwise beyond its natural habitats...The charcoal assemblage of Tel Tsaf provides the earliest evidence of olive cultivation outside its natural distribution.It also offers evidence for early cultivation of common...

Olive oil holds a rarefied spot in the food world — rich-tasting yet healthy, and able to be used in a wide variety of dishes and cuisines. It’s also something with plenty of history on its side — which is to say that people have been making use of olive oil for, literally, thousands of years. And if you’re looking for evidence of that, you can find it on wall paintings dating back to ancient Egypt, which illustrate the techniques used to make said oil many years ago.But why stop there? If beer can be brewed according to an ancient...

A New Mexico restaurant generated controversy -- and profits -- this summer with a play on "Black Lives Matter." Now it's coasting on the uproar that began with its sign and has printed hats and T-shirts with the phrase, jumping straight into the seemingly never-ending national conversation on race. Rick Camuglia, owner of Paisano's, an Italian restaurant in Albuquerque, put the phrase "black olives matter" on his sign last month to help sell a new tuna dish with black olive tapenade. It worked like a charm, bringing in more business, with some people adding black olives to every dish they...

Paisano’s Italian restaurant was accused of making a joke in poor taste against the “Black Lives Matter” protest when it shared the “Black Olives Matter Try Our Tapenade” slogan out the front of its Alburquerque, New Mexico, premises. People have taken to social media to slam the slogan, with Claudia Sanchez writing: “As a woman of color I find your posting offensive and in very bad taste. “You simply wish to rub salt in an ugly festering wound which evil minded people refuse to allow to heal. The civilized world no longer has any tolerance for your hateful public display...

Villagers in what is today Israel were the first to cultivate olive trees, an international study that pooled data from countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea has concluded. This start of olive domestication apparently began in the Galilee around 7,000 to 6,500 years ago, the team estimates. Olives and especially olive oil were staples of ancient economies around the Mediterranean Basin: The oil was used for cooking, lighting as well as medicinal and ritual purposes. But so far there has been little agreement among researchers as to where and when people first domesticated the plant. Dating estimates have ranged from more...

Freeper Lizma2 requested an appetizer thread last month; and since appetizers are one of my two favorite things to cook, I’m happy to oblige. I’ll repost some of my favorites and a new one I’ve found, and hopefully others will have contributions. This pastry 'Sunflower' - or 'Tarte Soleil' - is visually beautiful, but not that difficult to make. You can do it with a wide variety of fillings, and sweet or savory. Here’s a recipe from ‘Italian Food Forever’ http://www.italianfoodforever.com/2016/07/sunflower-spinach-puff-pastry-tartand from ‘Entertaining with Beth’, a video showing the technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIF-6CFsYxk****************************************************** A couple of decades ago, when chef Jean Georges...

More than 4,000 years ago builders carved out the entire surface of a naturally pyramid-shaped promontory on the Greek island of Keros. They shaped it into terraces covered with 1,000 tonnes of specially imported gleaming white stone to give it the appearance of a giant stepped pyramid rising from the Aegean: the most imposing manmade structure in all the Cyclades archipelago... Archaeologists from three different countries involved in an ongoing excavation have found evidence of a complex of drainage tunnels -- constructed 1,000 years before the famous indoor plumbing of the Minoan palace of Knossos on Crete -- and traces...

The owner of an Italian restaurant in New Mexico says he’s seen a surge in business after posting a billboard that featured a food-centric pun playing off the Black Lives Matter slogan. Rick Camuglia, owner of Paisano’s in Albuquerque, posted what he thought would be a well-received joke on the marquee sign in front of his restaurant last week. It read: "BLACK OLIVES MATTER — TRY OUR TAPENADE."

Giraffe was on the menu in Pompeii's standard restaurants, says a new research into a non-elite section of the ancient Roman city buried by Mount Vesuvius' eruption in 79 A.D. The study, which will be presented on Jan. 4 at the Archaeological Institute of America and American Philological Association Joint Annual Meeting in Chicago, draws on a multi-year excavation in a forgotten area inside one of the busiest gates of Pompeii, the Porta Stabia. Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, said his team has spent more than a decade researching the life of the middle and...

Generally speaking, the Israelites of Christ’s time were frugal eaters. Frankly until about 100 years ago, frugality in eating was more imposed than chosen. The food was more scarce and less convenient than today. It’s availability was seasonable, and all the elements needed to be made from scratch, including hauling in the water from wells etc.Bread was the essential, basic food. So basic was it that in Hebrew “to eat bread” and “to have a meal” in the same thing. Bread was treated with great respect and many rules existed to preserve that reverence. Any crumbs of over the size...

University of Cincinnati archaeologists are turning up discoveries in the famed Roman city of Pompeii that are wiping out the historic perceptions of how the Romans dined, with the rich enjoying delicacies such as flamingos and the poor scrounging for soup or gruel. Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, will present these discoveries on Jan. 4, at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and American Philological Association (APA) in Chicago. UC teams of archaeologists have spent more than a decade at two city blocks within a non-elite district in the Roman...

Palestinian Authority Arabs showed up at the Jewish village of Adei Ad on Monday to harvest olives – olives from trees that were planted and nurtured by local Jewish farmers. The PA group was accompanied by PA police, who stood watch as the harvesters gathered Adei Ad’s produce. Residents of Adei Ad explained that the trees were planted years ago, and that PA Arabs recently filed a claim for ownership, arguing that an Arab family owns the land the trees were planted on. Local Jews say the claim of land ownership is false. The trees in question are located just...

I apologize for the vanity posting, but I am at the end of my rope on this. And that leads me to ask this question to the smartest people in the world, the people that read and post articles to the Free Republic website. You cant buy fresh "off the tree" olives anywhere, that I can find, in California. And they are everywhere. I was up in Napa and Sonoma Valley last week, and there are olive trees everywhere. We drove all over the place, to every produce stand we could find. Nobody sells uncured olives. The thing is, I...

<p>Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, claims he suffered permanent injuries after biting down on olive pit hidden in a sandwich he bought three years ago at a House of Representatives cafeteria. In return, the Ohio Democrat is suing the cafeteria for $150,000.</p>

WASHINGTON (CN) - Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich says he suffered permanent injuries from biting an olive pit hidden in the sandwich wrap he bought at a House of Representatives cafeteria. He demands $150,000. The former presidential hopeful sued Restaurant Associates, which operates the cafeteria in the Longworth Office Building, its parent company, Compass Group USA, and food suppliers Performance Food Group Co. and Foodbuy LLC. Kucinich seeks damages for negligence, in Superior Court.

A huge quantity of olive stones on an ancient shipwreck more than 2,000 years old has provided valuable insight into the diet of sailors in the ancient world, researchers in Cyprus said Thursday. The shipwreck, dating from around 400 B.C. and laden mainly with wine amphorae from the Aegean island of Chios and other north Aegean islands, was discovered deep under the sea off Cyprus's southern coast. Excavation on the site, which started in November 2007, has determined that the ship was a merchant vessel of the late classical period. "An interesting piece of evidence that gives us information on...

Hippocrates uses olive oil-based ointments for all kinds of uses and for treating trauma, scratches, wounds, and concussions that are not too deeply penetrating; it was considered to have healing power. In essence, it does because it contains the vital antioxidants scalene, flavonoids, and polyphenols at a minimum. Also, it has Omega components such as Omega 9, Vitamin A, Vitamin K, and traces of Vitamin C. It has Vitamin E, as well, which is in itself an antioxidant, so it has the ability to enhance and repair components of our skin. It is very important for our skin; our skin...

Genetic analysis has revealed the contents of an ancient shipwreck dating back to the era of the Roman Republic and Athenian Empire. The cargo was olive oil flavored with oregano. Beyond discovering ingredients for Italian salad dressing on the sea floor, such research could provide a wealth of insights concerning the everyday life of ancient seafaring civilizations that would otherwise be lost at sea. An international team of U.S. and Greek researchers investigated the remains of a 2,400-year-old shipwreck that lies 230 feet (70 meters) deep, roughly a half-mile (1 kilometer) off the coast of the Greek island of Chios...

FDA Warns Consumers About Potentially Contaminated Olives April 13, 2007 The Food and Drug Administration issued an alert Friday warning consumers that some canned and jarred imported olives may be contaminated with the bacteria that causes botulism, a potentially deadly illness. No cases have been reported, but the FDA issued an urgent recall of olives manufactured and imported by Charlie Brown di Rutigliano & Figli S.r.l, of Bari, Italy. The olives affected by the FDA recall are distributed and sold under the following brands: Borrelli, Bonta di Puglia, Cento, Corrado's, Dal Raccolto, Flora, Roland and Vantia, and have codes that...