I used to buy good virgin Spanish olive oil in tin - I had a Spanish friend that insisted that Spanish oil is better than Italian and that the Italians just have better marketing.
But then one day I realized that I live north of the alps and that I should therefore use virgin rapsöl instead. "Virgin Rape" in English. They re-marketed it as canola in America for obvious reasons but their version also has a couple of mutations that make the flavor milder. Virgin rape is different than processed rapeseed cooking oil - processed has no flavor while virgin tastes nutty.
Farmers have been growing it north of the Alps for thousands of years all the way up into Scandinavia. The fields of yellow flowers are everywhere.
One nearby farm that I buy it from, it tastes like hazelnut. At another farm it tastes like sunflower seed. It's softer than olive oil and doesn't have that bite at the back of your throat.
It makes beautiful mayonnaise - a nice rich yellow color and faint nuttiness - you can't use olive oil for mayonnaise because of the sharpness in olive oil.
Taste aside, rapeseed oil is rich in erucic acid unless it is made out of canola. Canola is a special low-erucic variety of rapeseed that is safe for consumption in large quantities.
I learned this recently while doing an olive oil tasting in Greece: the bite in the back of your throat is caused by polyphenols - antioxidants. The bite is indicative that the olive oil is providing something healthy
There is no better olive oil than local greek one in my experience although what you describe sounds good too. Of course taste is highly subjective, but that simply works the best for me (and I am a visitor to all those countries, no strong emotional attachment to one from my country since we don't grow olives at all, its often shown by folks from southern Europe as you experienced too).
Also rapeseed oil doesn't have all the benefits extra virgin olive oil has but its a healthy choice too. It seems more temperature stable so doesn't burn as easily as EVOO so maybe better for various cooking.
I think this is really cool! I don't think Texas will make a significant dent in the global supply of olive oil any time soon, kind of the same way wine from Texas doesn't make a dent in global wine production. I imagine it'll be a small but high-quality regional thing. The weather is just too volatile. I can't see a farmer investing huge amounts of money and land in olive trees when a polar vortex can wipe them out (and then having to cut them back and wait for them to regrow which takes much longer than traditional crops). But nonetheless I think it's really cool to see how farmers are adapting and growing new things at scale like olive trees in Texas.
My family has a bunch of land in central/south texas and this was my dad's dream for it. I am curious about resources on how to get started. Where to get the trees is probably the first big step.
I used to buy good virgin Spanish olive oil in tin - I had a Spanish friend that insisted that Spanish oil is better than Italian and that the Italians just have better marketing.
But then one day I realized that I live north of the alps and that I should therefore use virgin rapsöl instead. "Virgin Rape" in English. They re-marketed it as canola in America for obvious reasons but their version also has a couple of mutations that make the flavor milder. Virgin rape is different than processed rapeseed cooking oil - processed has no flavor while virgin tastes nutty.
Farmers have been growing it north of the Alps for thousands of years all the way up into Scandinavia. The fields of yellow flowers are everywhere.
One nearby farm that I buy it from, it tastes like hazelnut. At another farm it tastes like sunflower seed. It's softer than olive oil and doesn't have that bite at the back of your throat.
It makes beautiful mayonnaise - a nice rich yellow color and faint nuttiness - you can't use olive oil for mayonnaise because of the sharpness in olive oil.
Taste aside, rapeseed oil is rich in erucic acid unless it is made out of canola. Canola is a special low-erucic variety of rapeseed that is safe for consumption in large quantities.
I learned this recently while doing an olive oil tasting in Greece: the bite in the back of your throat is caused by polyphenols - antioxidants. The bite is indicative that the olive oil is providing something healthy
There is no better olive oil than local greek one in my experience although what you describe sounds good too. Of course taste is highly subjective, but that simply works the best for me (and I am a visitor to all those countries, no strong emotional attachment to one from my country since we don't grow olives at all, its often shown by folks from southern Europe as you experienced too).
Also rapeseed oil doesn't have all the benefits extra virgin olive oil has but its a healthy choice too. It seems more temperature stable so doesn't burn as easily as EVOO so maybe better for various cooking.
I think this is really cool! I don't think Texas will make a significant dent in the global supply of olive oil any time soon, kind of the same way wine from Texas doesn't make a dent in global wine production. I imagine it'll be a small but high-quality regional thing. The weather is just too volatile. I can't see a farmer investing huge amounts of money and land in olive trees when a polar vortex can wipe them out (and then having to cut them back and wait for them to regrow which takes much longer than traditional crops). But nonetheless I think it's really cool to see how farmers are adapting and growing new things at scale like olive trees in Texas.
My family has a bunch of land in central/south texas and this was my dad's dream for it. I am curious about resources on how to get started. Where to get the trees is probably the first big step.
looks like the A&M Agrilife extension has a pretty good reading resource: https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/fruit-nut/wp-content/upl...