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Rating: 
Summary: Writing which glistens, irresistible recipes: a must-have
Review: As a cookbook author myself, I see lots of culinary offerings, and I can guarantee Deborah Krasner's is one you will both learn from and cook with. It's seductive, reassuring, and authoritative all at once, and the recipes, clearly thoroughly tested, work. Yes, it's about olive oil. But it's like having a confident, knowledgeable, generous friend in the kitchen with you. The writing pulses with vitality and enthusiasm; the recipes sound irresistible (and those I have tried have been).
Who could resist a Grilled Portobello, White Bean, and Arugula Sandwich, an Iced Celery Soup with Feta, Toasted Walnuts, and Apple, and twenty-one pages of pastas, each more invitingly full-flavored than the last? It's hard to decide which to fix first: but I got to tell you, the improbable sounding 4-ingredient cookies on page 195 (Sweet Taralle) are as easy to make as they are impossible to stop eating, and the Cellentani Pasta with Oven-Dried Tomatoes and Gorgonzola (which also features capers, olives, and garlic) is extraordinarily flavorful. You will also learn how to do a superb fake aged balsamic vinegar (in case you don't feel like dropping $90 a bottle for the real thing). And though the book is not vegetarian, it is very vegetarian-friendly.
There's also loads of helpful cooking arcana. Krasner takes you through things like "Respecting a Recipe" (ie, how to make it work for you each and every time, even if you have to make changes), "Boning a Whole Fish" and why heating the pan before you add the oil is "a significant step forward." Next to a recipe extolling the virtues of cast-iron skillets, adjacent text explains why cast iron works, and how to season and care for it.
If you've been boggled by the numerous selections every grocery store now seems to offer, you will never again be intimidated, for The Flavors of Olive Oil is also, as its subtitle says, a tasting guide. There are ratings of more than 140 individual artisanal oils plus "A Short Course on Olive Oil" (which will tell you everything you need to know about choosing, buying, storing, cooking, and , yes, tasting olive oils), But its delicious writing is lubricated with far more than the flavor of this particular oil; the book glistens with the flavor of life and celebration, in and out of the kitchen. --- Crescent Dragonwagon
Rating:
Summary: Should Come Packaged With Samples
Review: Deborah Krasner rises to the challenge of leading a tour through the world's olive oils without actually having any on hand for us to sample. Her recipes fit in well with her tasting notes, and the extensive listing of olive oil varieties and brands from different countries dovetails with her resources section. She give guidelines for a tasting. It is important in the beginning that Krasner gives us a warning on "the dark side of current olive production in countries of the European Union" relating to quantity production and environmental damage. There's also the question of possible corruption and chicanery in popular European oils. Perhaps the growing presence of high quality California oils is the answer. Food writer Elliot Essman's other reviews and food articles are available at www.stylegourmet.com
Rating:
Summary: Highly Practical Advice on Making the Best of Olive Oil
Review: This book, 'The Flavors of Olive Oil' by professional writer Deborah Krasner may be the answer to your prayers as you browse the fifty or more different labels of olive oil on the shelves of even a modest local market, let alone the bounty available at a megamart or a super gourmet store such as Zabar's or Balducci's in New York City. These riches cannot begin to be approached by a three-page article in 'Cooks Illustrated' or 'Consumer Reports'. And, even this book doesn't tell the whole story, as most of the economic, historical, and geopolitics of olive oil are left to other writers. This book truly concentrates only on Flavor, nutrition, and cooking with olive oil. A perfect companion to this book is Mort Rosenbloom's book 'Olives' which has not a single recipe, but lots of poop on the ways of the European Union, politics, olive growing locations and people, history, and economics. You simply cannot get the full picture without reading both. But getting back to Ms. Krasner's 'A Tasting Guide and Cookbook', the very, very best chapter is the second on techniques for tasting olive oil. This falls under the category of teaching you how to fish rather than giving you a fish. As preparing for a group tasting can be a bit pricy, it is one of the very best excuses I have ever found for gathering together a group of like-minded people to a common cause. (You find ways of socializing in some of the strangest places). In the absence of a handy group to help share opinions and defray the costs of buying ten or twelve bottles of olive oil, the author offers an 18 page guide to commercially available olive oils and her own olive oil karass' opinions on them (for the explanation of the obscure term karass, see Kurt Vonnegut's novel, 'Cat's Cradle'). The depressing thing about this long list of olive oil tastings is that it doesn't even cover some of the brands on my megamart's shelves. But, it covers the most important ones, for sure. I was especially pleased to find the author and her tasters giving a very good opinion of at least one nationally available brand, Colavita, which is a doubly good value as it is available in metal cans in fairly small quantities. Other big Italian supermarket brands such as Berio (also very good) and Bertolli (not quite as distinctive a taste as the other two) come in cans of only a gallon or more. And, as the book so carefully states, protecting extra virgin olive oil from heat and light will prolong it's shelf life. As I was already quite familiar with the differences between 'extra virgin olive oil', 'virgin olive oil', 'olive oil', and 'light olive oil' before reading this book, this was no great illumination. What was illuminating was the great variety of tastes in olive oil from region to region, and how delicate those tastes are. For those of you who always skip to the back of the book, Tuscan extra virgin olive oil has the most distinctive taste, followed by oils from Apulia (Italy), Greece, and Provence (France). It was also illuminating to read how ephemeral the sharp tastes were. A year old oil, kept under the very best conditions, will simply not taste as fresh and bright and distinctive as an oil bottled and tasted in January, a month or two after most olives are harvested. One of the most important economic lessons one can get from this book is the fact that you are wasting money if you use an expensive olive oil to sautee, pan fry, or deep fry, as heat kills most, if not all of the distinctive flavors of the extra virgin oil. The whole point to producing extra virgin oil is to do it without any application of heat and without any technique which creates heat. If you are an avid follower of Mario Batali and believe that even deep frying should be done in extra virgin olive oil, be aware that there are several very good brands of extra virgin which will not fracture your pocket book. After all, if you are intent on following Mario to pure southern Italian goodness, then you may expect to have to pay for it. (Mario's point is that Italians used EVOO because that was all they had. The techniques for squeezing the second and third pressings from the olives simply did not exist until the 19th century). If you did not already know of olive oil's health benefits, this book will also fill you in on this score. Olive oil benefits by being a mono-unsaturated lipid that, by itself, is better than saturated animal fats such as butter and lard, and also better than poly-unsaturated fats such as canola and safflower oils. Olive oil adds value by containing vitamins, anti-oxidants, and other good stuff that only a chemist can pronounce. The down side is, I suspect, that this goodness degrades with time, enhancing the importance of getting the fresh stuff. The book contains an excellent list of internet sources, which, surprisingly, leaves out two of my favorites, Zingermans in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which does a national mail order business and DePalo in Little Italy, Manhatten, NY, NY. I cite this store because it is one place where I am sure you can go in and request a taste of olive oil samples and you will receive them with a smile. They also make primo fresh ricotta and mozzarella. The recipes are useful and comprise the lion's share of pages in the book, but the real gold comes before you get to the recipes. Highly recommended if you dote on Mediterranean food, or even if you just dote on good food and health.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Practical Advice on Making the Best of Olive Oil
Review: This book, `The Flavors of Olive Oil' by professional writer Deborah Krasner may be the answer to your prayers as you browse the fifty or more different labels of olive oil on the shelves of even a modest local market, let alone the bounty available at a megamart or a super gourmet store such as Zabar's or Balducci's in New York City. These riches cannot begin to be approached by a three-page article in `Cooks Illustrated' or `Consumer Reports'. And, even this book doesn't tell the whole story, as most of the economic, historical, and geopolitics of olive oil are left to other writers. This book truly concentrates only on Flavor, nutrition, and cooking with olive oil. A perfect companion to this book is Mort Rosenbloom's book `Olives' which has not a single recipe, but lots of poop on the ways of the European Union, politics, olive growing locations and people, history, and economics. You simply cannot get the full picture without reading both. But getting back to Ms. Krasner's `A Tasting Guide and Cookbook', the very, very best chapter is the second on techniques for tasting olive oil. This falls under the category of teaching you how to fish rather than giving you a fish. As preparing for a group tasting can be a bit pricy, it is one of the very best excuses I have ever found for gathering together a group of like-minded people to a common cause. (You find ways of socializing in some of the strangest places). In the absence of a handy group to help share opinions and defray the costs of buying ten or twelve bottles of olive oil, the author offers an 18 page guide to commercially available olive oils and her own olive oil karass' opinions on them (for the explanation of the obscure term karass, see Kurt Vonnegut's novel, `Cat's Cradle'). The depressing thing about this long list of olive oil tastings is that it doesn't even cover some of the brands on my megamart's shelves. But, it covers the most important ones, for sure. I was especially pleased to find the author and her tasters giving a very good opinion of at least one nationally available brand, Colavita, which is a doubly good value as it is available in metal cans in fairly small quantities. Other big Italian supermarket brands such as Berio (also very good) and Bertolli (not quite as distinctive a taste as the other two) come in cans of only a gallon or more. And, as the book so carefully states, protecting extra virgin olive oil from heat and light will prolong it's shelf life. As I was already quite familiar with the differences between `extra virgin olive oil', `virgin olive oil', `olive oil', and `light olive oil' before reading this book, this was no great illumination. What was illuminating was the great variety of tastes in olive oil from region to region, and how delicate those tastes are. For those of you who always skip to the back of the book, Tuscan extra virgin olive oil has the most distinctive taste, followed by oils from Apulia (Italy), Greece, and Provence (France). It was also illuminating to read how ephemeral the sharp tastes were. A year old oil, kept under the very best conditions, will simply not taste as fresh and bright and distinctive as an oil bottled and tasted in January, a month or two after most olives are harvested. One of the most important economic lessons one can get from this book is the fact that you are wasting money if you use an expensive olive oil to sautee, pan fry, or deep fry, as heat kills most, if not all of the distinctive flavors of the extra virgin oil. The whole point to producing extra virgin oil is to do it without any application of heat and without any technique which creates heat. If you are an avid follower of Mario Batali and believe that even deep frying should be done in extra virgin olive oil, be aware that there are several very good brands of extra virgin which will not fracture your pocket book. After all, if you are intent on following Mario to pure southern Italian goodness, then you may expect to have to pay for it. (Mario's point is that Italians used EVOO because that was all they had. The techniques for squeezing the second and third pressings from the olives simply did not exist until the 19th century). If you did not already know of olive oil's health benefits, this book will also fill you in on this score. Olive oil benefits by being a mono-unsaturated lipid that, by itself, is better than saturated animal fats such as butter and lard, and also better than poly-unsaturated fats such as canola and safflower oils. Olive oil adds value by containing vitamins, anti-oxidants, and other good stuff that only a chemist can pronounce. The down side is, I suspect, that this goodness degrades with time, enhancing the importance of getting the fresh stuff. The book contains an excellent list of internet sources, which, surprisingly, leaves out two of my favorites, Zingermans in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which does a national mail order business and DePalo in Little Italy, Manhatten, NY, NY. I cite this store because it is one place where I am sure you can go in and request a taste of olive oil samples and you will receive them with a smile. They also make primo fresh ricotta and mozzarella. The recipes are useful and comprise the lion's share of pages in the book, but the real gold comes before you get to the recipes. Highly recommended if you dote on Mediterranean food, or even if you just dote on good food and health.
Rating:
Summary: Don't forget Australia!
Review: This is an excellent book - well researched, authoritative and entertaining. As an olive producer I read a lot of nonsense about our product so I'm always delighted to find someone who has gone to the trouble to get it right.
However ... while Deborah has given a fairly comprehensive review of oils produced around the world, it's a pity she hasn't heard of the largish island west of New Zealand which has been producing excellent olive oils for many years. (I would have overlooked the omission except that New Zealand got a mention.) She even accuses prominent Australian nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton of being British!
Perhaps in the next edition?
Rating:
Summary: A great Guide to Olive Oil: tasting, selecting, and cooking
Review: This is an excellent book. It includes an extremely lucid discussion of what extra virgin olive oil is and how it is produced. The descriptions of almost 150 oils from around the world are extremely useful, especially since it includes oils commonly found in most supermarkets in addition to specialty oils (lots of web addresses are included). The discussion on how to classify and taste olive oil is probably the best I have ever read. Almost 2/3 of the book is devoted to wonderful recipes based on olive oil. I have not even finished reading it yet and I have already marked favorites and just took the first batch of olive and pepper knots (an easy cocktail treat) out of the oven. Finally, the book is filled with practical advice and hints on cooking, cookware, and just eating well. This book is definitely worth the purchase for anyone who wants to learn more about olive oil or to explore Mediterranean cooking.
Rating:
Summary: A great Guide to Olive Oil: tasting, selecting, and cooking
Review: This is an excellent book. It includes an extremely lucid discussion of what extra virgin olive oil is and how it is produced. The descriptions of almost 150 oils from around the world are extremely useful, especially since it includes oils commonly found in most supermarkets in addition to specialty oils (lots of web addresses are included). The discussion on how to classify and taste olive oil is probably the best I have ever read. Almost 2/3 of the book is devoted to wonderful recipes based on olive oil. I have not even finished reading it yet and I have already marked favorites and just took the first batch of olive and pepper knots (an easy cocktail treat) out of the oven. Finally, the book is filled with practical advice and hints on cooking, cookware, and just eating well. This book is definitely worth the purchase for anyone who wants to learn more about olive oil or to explore Mediterranean cooking.
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