Products |
Greek Olive Oil, Vinegar, Honey & Salt
By
Published: Jun 28, 2016
Category:
Food and Wine
The smart money votes for the Mediterranean Diet. It’s the opposite of ours. America is obsessed with low-fat foods; in the Mediterranean, healthy fats are key. So pour the olive oil on. Eat nuts between meals. Eat real meals. Walk. Breathe. And you just might not need to take statins.
Seriously?
Here’s the Times: “By changing your diet, you can dramatically reduce your risk of having a heart attack even if you have coronary artery disease. We have data suggesting that the risk reduction can happen within weeks.”
Does this mean you should spend $33 on olive oil?
A friend says no: “It’s just self-indulgent. You can get olive oil that says it’s extra virgin — and really is — for less.”
My response: “Self-care” and “self-indulgence” are first cousins. Of course you don’t need $33 olive oil. But assuming you can afford it, buying olive oil of the highest purity can make you feel better — and feel better about yourself, which is no small thing.
A friend reminded me that Greek olive oil is the gold standard and said that Idyll Foods was committed to offering the best of the best. I dug into the company website. I read about Dino Bradlee, who has lived in Greece for three decades. I sampled the offerings. And I have returned to say: Why not?
Idyll’s mission is idealistic in the extreme. The founders want to “encourage olive oil as a replacement for dairy-based butter” and “take part in the movement toward responsible agriculture and consumption.” Their vehicle: “small-scale organic producers in Greece.” Like this:
OLIVE OIL
In the Laconia region in the southeast Peloponnese, olives have been cultivated since 1500 B.C. They’re still harvested by hand and crushed into a paste, in a cold extraction process. A two-phase centrifuge “means less water and energy are used, more oil is extracted, and the resulting oil contains more polyphenols and has a longer shelf life.” [To buy a liter of Idyll Extra virgin olive oil for $44 or a 500 ml tin for $19 from Amazon, click here.]
VINEGAR
The growers harvest the grapes by hand. And every added taste is equally hand-cultivated. [To buy White Wine Vinegar with Thyme for $14 from Amazon, click here. To buy Sweet Vinegar, click here.]
HONEY
Idyll buys honey from a family that has been practicing beekeeping in this area since the 1930s. The honey production is organic, free of pesticides; the bees are never fed antibiotics or synthetic supplements. [To buy 1.06 pounds of Greek Heather Honey for $20 from Amazon, click here. To buy Greek Thyme Honey for $23, click here.]
SALT
This fleur de sel is carefully gathered by hand and rinsed in seawater. Producers fill each package by hand. [To buy 7 ounces of Greek Sea Salt for $14 from Amazon, click here.]
