Olive oil quality and old Greek perception

[dimitris]

I have been meaning to ask this question, about OO.

Here in Greece, we have three types (broadly speaking) of OO:
- extra virgin OO
- pomace oil and
- OO which is processed from older oils and other undefined sources. Still OO though.

I tend to use the third kind and get a yellowish soap. The extra virgin variety yields a green color for me. I haven't seen any other differences.

Now, older generations in rural areas and villages used to make soap from OO leftovers and lye from ash. OO wasn't in abundance back then, and people had to use the most of everything. Hence they used the OO at the bottom of the barrel which usually had small pieces of olives and was very cloudy.

There's a perception here that this OO results in superior soap when compared with other kinds of OO. My question is: is there a reason for that? Or it is just an old myth?

 

[heartsong]

hi there...I think it's because olive oil has been the staple of Mediterranean diets for 1,000's of years...afterall, you use what is handy...here's a little bit of facts, tho there's tons of it out there: http://www.soaphistory.net/

recently I have been researching pomace olive oil which most mass-produced olive soaps seem to be made from...some alarming facts I've unearthed regarding extracting the "pomace" is using hexane gas and other solvents, some linked to carcinogens: http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/olive-oil-basics/olive-oil-grades/olive-pomace-oil/6210/2

I personally won't use pomace...in the states we have extra virgin (1st pressing), virgin (2nd pressing) and regular a clear "golden" 100% olive, which I assume is 3rd pressing...pomace falls below that and is a murky green color.

I like the golden olive as it makes a nice white bar and doesn't smell as "olive-y" and I use this to cook with, too.

hope this helps push the conversation further down the road.

 

[Cadienne]

Hi Dimitris,

My husband's family is from Greece. For years, his mother believed that eating shelled peanuts was bad luck, because HER mother had insisted on it. (There were quite a few superstitions, but that was just one of them.) Finally, when my husband's grandmother was on her deathbed, she confessed to the family that she had made up the story of bad luck peanuts because she didn't want to have to sweep shells off the carpets!

Perhaps more than a few traditions and superstitions start this way...

Lani

 

[dimitris]

Indeed, that's what I thought as well. It's probably to make sure people don't use the "good" oil for soap.

 

[MaitriBB]

Aw Greece - I lived there as a child Miss it!

 

[Sapwn]

　
Here in Greece, we have three types (broadly speaking) of OO:
- extra virgin OO
- pomace oil and
- OO which is processed from older oils and other undefined sources. Still OO though.

　

in the states we have extra virgin (1st pressing), virgin (2nd pressing) and regular a clear "golden" 100% olive, which I assume is 3rd pressing...pomace falls below that and is a murky green color.

I believe we share the same classification of olive oil qualities. We just call it in a different way.
　
1st pressing: Extra virgin, we call it “Αγουρέλαιο”
2nd pressing: Virgin, we call it “Αγνό παρθένο ελαιόλαδο”
3rd pressing: Olive Pomace oil, we call it “Πυρηνέλαιο”
4th category: mixture of various olive oils, older ones, refined ones, however, 100% olive oil with no pomace oil.
　

Now, older generations in rural areas and villages used to make soap from OO leftovers and lye from ash. OO wasn't in abundance back then, and people had to use the most of everything. Hence they used the OO at the bottom of the barrel which usually had small pieces of olives and was very cloudy.
　
There's a perception here that this OO results in superior soap when compared with other kinds of OO. My question is: is there a reason for that? Or it is just an old myth?

　
The remaining at the bottom of the barrel is what we call “μούργα” and you can see it in the following picture.

　
It was used for saponification after being filtered together with other olive oils, such as older olive oils and used OO for frying.
　
There is a reason for not using extra virgin OO in soap making. Extra virgin oil is poorer in fatty acids compared to the lowest qualities of OO previous described and therefore it does not saponify easily.
This is indeed the reason for finding your extra virgin OO soap green the first weeks of curing while you saw that after a longer curing period it turns to light beige as all olive oil soaps do.


There is no reason to use extra virgin olive oil for soap making according to my opinion. I use the lower qualities of OO in soap making and I leave extra virgin OO only for superfatting at the end.

 

[bodhi]

I bet they were right. That bottom of the barrel stuff in your last pic looks like its loaded with olive goodies.