Full name: Olives: The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit

Author: Mort Rosenblum Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Amazon Goodreads ISBNs: 9780865475267 0865475261

I love olives. I often crave them. Green, black, in-between; jumbo, teeny-tiny and middle-sized. They're bursts of flavor in my mouth, with a long remembered taste. I love olive oil too, that clean slick feel in my mouth and flavors that are as various as the bottles. It's no wonder that I enjoyed reading Mort Rosenblum's Olives, The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit. It's both a travel narrative and a culinary narrative as Rosenblum seeks out ancient groves of trees and historic presses in France, Italy and Morocco. He doesn't slight the California olive either. The new energy surrounding the fruit in Northern California is such a pleasure, more so because Corning, California is such a short trip from Ashland, Oregon. We've got olive groves here in Southern Oregon now too with extra virgin, cold press oil now in the local markets.One of the many aspects of Rosenblum's work that I really appreciated was the international olive oil economy and the politics of terroir. Thanks to Olives, The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit, I'm a much better informed olive and olive oil consumer in all meanings of the word.