OLIVE OIL HISTORY
 Magical, medicinal, spiritual, liquid gold. Olive oil was much more than food for the inhabitants of the Mediterranean. From the beginning of time, olive oil and olive trees have symbolized wealth, blessing, peace, glory, purification, and honor.
The fascination with the so-called Mediterranean diet, much praised in our day, is not new at all. He only took the rest of the world six thousand years to recognize the nutritional benefits of olives and olive oil!
The olive tree is native to Asia Minor and spread from Iran, Syria and Palestine to the rest of the Mediterranean. It is one of the oldest crops known ... the seeds began to be planted before the invention of writing.
By 3000 BC, the olive had become the main crop of the Kingdom of Minos (and perhaps was one of the reasons for his wealth). The Phoenicians brought the olive to Africa and Southern Europe, and later spread to Greece and Rome. The Romans extended their domain in the world and they extended the olive.
Over time, the olive and its oil have become integral parts of the culture, tradition and religious ceremonies. Muhammad advised his followers to apply olive oil on the body. Today it is still used for baptisms and anointing Christians. Early Greek and Jewish kings were anointed with olive oil, like the dead of many other cultures. He even found traces of olive wreaths on the tomb of King Tutankhamun.
The fact that olive trees are almost immortal, with a huge resistance to the elements and the passage of time, probably reinforced the belief that olive oil's strength and youth provided to those who consumed it. In Egypt, Greece and Rome, olive oil mixed with flowers and herbs to make perfumes, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
If one day travel to Jerusalem, do not forget to visit the Mount of Olives, where you see the olive trees 2,000 years old. These old trees are not at all like modern olive trees, as they have evolved and have been domesticated and manipulated by man. It is difficult to determine which varieties of olive tree from which, since the olive has spread to the Mediterranean, Africa and Europe, every place has developed differently and have given different names. It is more difficult to trace the lineage of an olive tree in the genealogy of a family!
The olive tree is a resident relative newcomer to the New World. During the past centuries has spread throughout the Americas, Japan, New Zealand and Australia. But one of the countries with the longest tradition in olives and olive oil is Spain. Look more closely. |
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