Rancid oil of any kind is foul and disgusting. You'd gag if you tried to eat something made with it.
Yet this article says things like:
> Rancidity, for example, isn’t generally a sought after quality in edible products. And yet, when it comes to olive oil in the U.S., people like it. Why? Partly, because rancid olive oil is less bitter than the good stuff.
Is this article using some definition of "rancid" different from the rest of us?
I totally get that some people don't like really fruity flavorful spicy olive oil. They want something more neutral. And that's fine.
But nobody in their right mind is picking something rancid. Nor would a supermarket ever sell it.
So I can't tell if the author doesn't know what rancid actually means, or if there's some separate food science definition of rancid that is different from everyday use -- but that the article doesn't bother to acknowledge or explain.
Oxidised olive oil loses the characteristic burn you get if you eat a spoonful of it alone [1]. If the oil has oxidised to lose that flavour, it has lost other flavours, lost some of its health benefits and developed harmful compounds [2]. The author is saying many Americans have been conditioned to accept this neutralised taste out of ignorance (and possibly preference) [3].
> some separate food science definition of rancid that is different from everyday use
It appears the common definition of rancid conflicts in some cases, e.g. aged cheese and apparently olive oil, with the organic chemical one for rancidification [4]. It might be better to refer to the spoiled oil as rancidified rather than rancid.
>But nobody in their right mind is picking something rancid. Nor would a supermarket ever sell it.
>So I can't tell if the author doesn't know what rancid actually means, or if there's some separate food science definition of rancid that is different from everyday use
More likely is that the average person doesn't know what rancid actually means in this context. Rancidity is a quality of oil that occurs when exposure to oxygen results in the existence of free radicals in the oil.
By and large, Americans actually prefer the taste of rancid olive oil.
> More likely is that the average person doesn't know what rancid actually means.
That's tautologically impossible. A word means exactly what most native speakers of the language believe it means.
And "rancid" means "smelling or tasting unpleasant as a result of being old and stale" or "rank in taste or smell" or "having an unpleasant smell or taste usually from chemical change or decomposition."
That just sounds like some food experts have chosen to use the word "rancid" for a technical measure which is actually at odds with the meaning of the word in common usage. This is a common behaviour of experts, but it's patronising and doesn't really help anyone.
> Rancid oil of any kind is foul and disgusting. You'd gag if you tried to eat something made with it.
“Rancid” is just oxidized, and its a matter of degree. Yes, at the extreme this is true. But “rancid” is a continuum, not just the extreme.
> Is this article using some definition of "rancid" different from the rest of us?
No, he’s probably just wrong. Rancidity does not reduce bitterness; rancid olive oil is more bitter. It might at moderate levels be tolerable, but that doesn't make his description of why it would be desirable make sense. What he says it counteracts is, instead, a characteristic distinguishing sign of rancidity.
IIRC, there's a different kind of “bad" olive oil with fermentation products which adds (unpleasant to most people, like rotten fruit) sweetness, which as I understand is mostly oil from poorly-stored olives, not rancid oil. I suppose a small amount of this effect might counteract natural bitterness in olive oil, but for neutral flavor you can usually just buy refined (extra-)light olive oil, instead of EVOO.
Or, because rancid olive oil will have lost other characteristic flavors, some of which some people may not like, he may be right that it is desirable to some people, but wrong in attributing that to a reduction in bitterness.
Um no. It's decomposed oil or fat and smells bad. The definition includes 'tastes bad'.
Ok we're disputing the definition of 'rancid' which is low-quality discussion. But I think there's only one definition in common use? And it's not 'oxidized'. Maybe the word had been coopted by olive oil people at some point to mean something else? You can't expect the rest of us to understand what's being claimed, if ordinary words have had their meaning changed.
Rancid doesn't mean "completely rotten" even though some people use the term to only mean that. From wikipedia:
> Rancidification is the process of complete or incomplete autoxidation or hydrolysis of fats and oils when exposed to air, light, moisture, or bacterial action, producing short-chain aldehydes, ketones and free fatty acids.[1]
> When these processes occur in food, undesirable odors and flavors can result.
The end stage you describe is accurate, but since it's a process, people will call it rancid before the end stage. Further, since there is a large subjective factor in whether a flavor is undesirable, there are folks who will be more or less tolerant of those flavors - some folks will think the oil is fine or maybe a little stale, while others will be extremely sensitive gag at the same oil.
Compare meat: there are people who think aged beef tastes rotten while others consider it a delicacy.
'rancidification' may be an industry term for a chemical process, but that doesn't change the definition of 'rancid', which does in fact mean 'smells bad as in rotten'
sure some cheeses can be pretty smelly, but we're talking about olive oil, and whether 'rancid' makes any sense to describe something with subtler flavor than fresh
> There’s nothing inherently wrong with liking rancid olive oil. There is, however, a problem with thinking you’re buying extra virgin and getting low-quality oil instead. For starters, because extra virgin oil is harder to make, it commands higher prices.
But most people are buying extremely cheap olive oil. The "extra virgin" designation does not seem to be strongly associated with price in grocery stores. What is associated with price is the "made in Italy" label, compared to oils made in countries near Italy, or even California. And it's such a sharp price difference that relatively few people are buying authentic Italian EVOO anyway—3x or 4x as much, in my estimation.
Most people are buying big jugs of olive oil from, e.g., Turkey, and they're totally fine with it. They don't taste the difference, as the article notes. So, if there's nothing inherently wrong with rancid olive oil, and people are getting a year's supply for $20 already, then what exactly is the problem?
I go out of my way to find olive oil from outside Italy since I heard the Italian olive oil industry is tied up with organised crime. Most common alternative sources are Tunisia and California. It's hard sometimes because you'll see olive oils labelled "Greek" or "Tunisian", and then you turn the bottle over and it says "BOTTLED IN ITALY"...
> So, if there's nothing inherently wrong with rancid olive oil, and people are getting a year's supply for $20 already, then what exactly is the problem?
I mean, if you thought you bought a new Iphone but it's actually an Android phone, you could still download apps and send messages and stuff. What would the problem be in that case?
IMO it's that a company that is misrepresenting an Iphone that way is certainly capable of doing all kinds of other mendacious behavior. So Perhaps your Turkish olive oil is a mixture of some unknown percentage of (rancid) olive oil with cheaper oil(s). Perhaps its not olive oil at all, but just cheaper oil colored to look like olive oil.
At some point, having a namespace clash that large is going to cause problems.
To my knowledge the best comercially available olive oils that you can get from stores in the EU market are Greek and Spanish olive oils. Italians do have some very good olive oils but one can only get them either from the farm or a specialty store.
I've always been satisfied with my grocery-bought olive oil, but also curious as to what "good" olive oil actually tastes like. Is there a brand or vendor in the US that sells such a product?
I'm a fan of PDO olive oil from regions in Greece that are known for their olive oil. Anything from Crete, Messinia, or Kalamata is usually top quality.
Since it's PDO, it's guaranteed to be a single cultivation, and from a region that takes its quality seriously.
California Olive Ranch is good. They grow and sell their own, and repackage imported oil. Their local stuff is very good quality. They have some single varietals (as opposed to blends) that are very tasty.
Yup, I second this. It's pretty much the only widely available high-quality affordable brand in the US. You tend to see chefs on cooking shows use it as their basic everyday olive oil.
There are plenty of great niche/imported brands as well, but it's pretty random as to which store might carry which ones, if any.
How can you reliably differentiate their local stuff from the oil that's mixed with imported oil, or even know whether the imported oil is EVOO?
IIRC they're no longer certified by the COOC. Given the massive amount of fraud in the olive oil industry, independent verification seems like the only tool to do that.
But even if you want to go by the seat of your pants, it seems like a bad idea to trust a company named "California Olive Ranch" whose growth into a nationally known label depends on importing olive oil from outside California.
In large cities or tourist towns you'll likely find a shop that sells nothing but olive oil and will provide you with bits of bread to dip in order to sample it to find one you like, like an ice cream shop.
No need to get as fancy as some of the replies below would have you think. Believe it or not, Kirkland brand olive oil (yes, from Costco in the 2-liter jugs) is widely considered, even by many professionals, to be among the best olive oils on the market that you can buy at a reasonable price. I personally use it and love it, and i'm originally from a region of the world where many families had many generations spent growing their own olives and making their own oil.
I just got back from overseas and while there went to a Michelin star restaurant where we got to sample different fresh olive oils and I can confirm they did taste somewhat like grass.
Well, there are varieties, depending on the olive type you get more or less of a bitter, spicy or fruity taste. Here's a quick guide to Spanish olives used for oils:
- Picual - strong, bitter and spicy, very grassy, also one of the most common single-variety Spanish olive oils. Perfect for cooking meat, or mixing/marinating.
- Arbequina - not as strong, less spicy, with sweet, exotic fruity/grassy flavors. Awesome for making mayonnaise or ali-oli.
- Hojiblanca - somewhat middle-of-the-road, with moderate spice and bitterness, great for salads!
- Cornicabra - strength varies a lot, also spicy if harvested earlier, very sweet if harvested later. Great all-around. Tasty for cooking and for salads.
There are others, but these are the main ones. Early/late harvesting plays a significant role on taste, earlier being more bitter. In general, I love the very greenish-colored cornicabra olive oil, which are full of early harvest chlorophylls, and that are not too spicy.
Unfortunately, most non-Mediterranean (USA, UK...) grocery store extra virgin olive oils may not print the olive variety or is a blend oil produced and marketed for export...
The top recommendation is there, among other reasons, for that taste:
>This oil starts with a slight caramel flavor, but a bitter pungency blooms followed by a pleasant piquancy. We all enjoyed its grassy flavor, which one panelist said gave her “summer vegetable garden vibes.” The oil was rich but not overly fatty. One tester observed, “The way my tongue is responding reminds me of a good matcha—there’s that astringency, and then a long finish.”
100%, that was exactly what it brought to mind for me as well: like I had reached into the lawn mower bag and sprinkled in some essence of grass clippings. No thanks.
If someone wants to call olive oil without grass-clippings-taste "rancid," it's a free country, but that term comes with overbearing negative connotations so I'd personally prefer "aged" or something.
> I've always been satisfied with my grocery-bought olive oil, but also curious as to what "good" olive oil actually tastes like.
There's an initial flavor that can be idiosyncratic to where the olives were grown-- to me it's quite a bit more savory and subtle than the same kinds of flavors we associate with wines, but it's usually there.
Then there's kind of aftertaste with a slightly "spicy" burn-- if tasting a small spoonful it can sometimes make people cough.
I actually hesitate to write this as a metric lest some flavor tech in New Jersey reverse engineer it as a target for flavor additives to conola oil or some such.
Good olive oil is as complex as good wine or coffee can be. I recommend going to an olive oil shop and doing a guided tasting of a few different olive oils.
If you happen to be in NYC, Fairway sells pretty high quality olive oil under their house brand. Plus they have a tasting station in the olive oil aisle.
Other than the California brand others have mentioned, I haven’t found anything of similar quality in a supermarket, including Whole Foods and other high end markets.
I went on a trip to Italy a few years ago and picked up some Laudemio Castello di Poppiano olive oil on-site. When I got back home, I set up a blind taste test between that and Colavita for friends and family. I preferred the Laudemio but was astounded that everyone else (8 people maybe?) preferred the Colavita. Go figure.
That said, I did the same blind test for balsamic vinegar and everyone vastly preferred the real aged stuff over the American balsamic.
Readit News
If you didn't know how cheese was made you could say we're blissfully ignorant about how much curdled milk we eat.
Rancid oil of any kind is foul and disgusting. You'd gag if you tried to eat something made with it.
Yet this article says things like:
> Rancidity, for example, isn’t generally a sought after quality in edible products. And yet, when it comes to olive oil in the U.S., people like it. Why? Partly, because rancid olive oil is less bitter than the good stuff.
Is this article using some definition of "rancid" different from the rest of us?
I totally get that some people don't like really fruity flavorful spicy olive oil. They want something more neutral. And that's fine.
But nobody in their right mind is picking something rancid. Nor would a supermarket ever sell it.
So I can't tell if the author doesn't know what rancid actually means, or if there's some separate food science definition of rancid that is different from everyday use -- but that the article doesn't bother to acknowledge or explain.
> some separate food science definition of rancid that is different from everyday use
It appears the common definition of rancid conflicts in some cases, e.g. aged cheese and apparently olive oil, with the organic chemical one for rancidification [4]. It might be better to refer to the spoiled oil as rancidified rather than rancid.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleocanthal
[2] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4614-7777-8_...
[3] https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/olive-oil-study-shows-some-cons...
[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancidification
>So I can't tell if the author doesn't know what rancid actually means, or if there's some separate food science definition of rancid that is different from everyday use
More likely is that the average person doesn't know what rancid actually means in this context. Rancidity is a quality of oil that occurs when exposure to oxygen results in the existence of free radicals in the oil.
By and large, Americans actually prefer the taste of rancid olive oil.
That's tautologically impossible. A word means exactly what most native speakers of the language believe it means.
And "rancid" means "smelling or tasting unpleasant as a result of being old and stale" or "rank in taste or smell" or "having an unpleasant smell or taste usually from chemical change or decomposition."
https://www.google.com/search?q=define+rancid
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/rancid
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rancid
If "Americans actually prefer the taste," then it isn't "rancid" in American Standard English.
“Rancid” is just oxidized, and its a matter of degree. Yes, at the extreme this is true. But “rancid” is a continuum, not just the extreme.
> Is this article using some definition of "rancid" different from the rest of us?
No, he’s probably just wrong. Rancidity does not reduce bitterness; rancid olive oil is more bitter. It might at moderate levels be tolerable, but that doesn't make his description of why it would be desirable make sense. What he says it counteracts is, instead, a characteristic distinguishing sign of rancidity.
IIRC, there's a different kind of “bad" olive oil with fermentation products which adds (unpleasant to most people, like rotten fruit) sweetness, which as I understand is mostly oil from poorly-stored olives, not rancid oil. I suppose a small amount of this effect might counteract natural bitterness in olive oil, but for neutral flavor you can usually just buy refined (extra-)light olive oil, instead of EVOO.
Or, because rancid olive oil will have lost other characteristic flavors, some of which some people may not like, he may be right that it is desirable to some people, but wrong in attributing that to a reduction in bitterness.
Ok we're disputing the definition of 'rancid' which is low-quality discussion. But I think there's only one definition in common use? And it's not 'oxidized'. Maybe the word had been coopted by olive oil people at some point to mean something else? You can't expect the rest of us to understand what's being claimed, if ordinary words have had their meaning changed.
> Rancidification is the process of complete or incomplete autoxidation or hydrolysis of fats and oils when exposed to air, light, moisture, or bacterial action, producing short-chain aldehydes, ketones and free fatty acids.[1]
> When these processes occur in food, undesirable odors and flavors can result.
The end stage you describe is accurate, but since it's a process, people will call it rancid before the end stage. Further, since there is a large subjective factor in whether a flavor is undesirable, there are folks who will be more or less tolerant of those flavors - some folks will think the oil is fine or maybe a little stale, while others will be extremely sensitive gag at the same oil.
Compare meat: there are people who think aged beef tastes rotten while others consider it a delicacy.
Unless it is cheese.
sure some cheeses can be pretty smelly, but we're talking about olive oil, and whether 'rancid' makes any sense to describe something with subtler flavor than fresh
But most people are buying extremely cheap olive oil. The "extra virgin" designation does not seem to be strongly associated with price in grocery stores. What is associated with price is the "made in Italy" label, compared to oils made in countries near Italy, or even California. And it's such a sharp price difference that relatively few people are buying authentic Italian EVOO anyway—3x or 4x as much, in my estimation.
Most people are buying big jugs of olive oil from, e.g., Turkey, and they're totally fine with it. They don't taste the difference, as the article notes. So, if there's nothing inherently wrong with rancid olive oil, and people are getting a year's supply for $20 already, then what exactly is the problem?
I mean, if you thought you bought a new Iphone but it's actually an Android phone, you could still download apps and send messages and stuff. What would the problem be in that case?
IMO it's that a company that is misrepresenting an Iphone that way is certainly capable of doing all kinds of other mendacious behavior. So Perhaps your Turkish olive oil is a mixture of some unknown percentage of (rancid) olive oil with cheaper oil(s). Perhaps its not olive oil at all, but just cheaper oil colored to look like olive oil.
At some point, having a namespace clash that large is going to cause problems.
Deleted Comment
Unless you buy it in small quantities and use it quickly after opening the bottle (within a week), it's rancid though.
Since it's PDO, it's guaranteed to be a single cultivation, and from a region that takes its quality seriously.
There are plenty of great niche/imported brands as well, but it's pretty random as to which store might carry which ones, if any.
IIRC they're no longer certified by the COOC. Given the massive amount of fraud in the olive oil industry, independent verification seems like the only tool to do that.
But even if you want to go by the seat of your pants, it seems like a bad idea to trust a company named "California Olive Ranch" whose growth into a nationally known label depends on importing olive oil from outside California.
A couple of references to back my claim
https://www.thedailymeal.com/1157209/what-sets-costco-extra-...
https://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/a44246/best-olive-...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/costco-olive-oil_n_5981e0abe4...
- Picual - strong, bitter and spicy, very grassy, also one of the most common single-variety Spanish olive oils. Perfect for cooking meat, or mixing/marinating.
- Arbequina - not as strong, less spicy, with sweet, exotic fruity/grassy flavors. Awesome for making mayonnaise or ali-oli.
- Hojiblanca - somewhat middle-of-the-road, with moderate spice and bitterness, great for salads!
- Cornicabra - strength varies a lot, also spicy if harvested earlier, very sweet if harvested later. Great all-around. Tasty for cooking and for salads.
There are others, but these are the main ones. Early/late harvesting plays a significant role on taste, earlier being more bitter. In general, I love the very greenish-colored cornicabra olive oil, which are full of early harvest chlorophylls, and that are not too spicy.
Unfortunately, most non-Mediterranean (USA, UK...) grocery store extra virgin olive oils may not print the olive variety or is a blend oil produced and marketed for export...
The top recommendation is there, among other reasons, for that taste:
>This oil starts with a slight caramel flavor, but a bitter pungency blooms followed by a pleasant piquancy. We all enjoyed its grassy flavor, which one panelist said gave her “summer vegetable garden vibes.” The oil was rich but not overly fatty. One tester observed, “The way my tongue is responding reminds me of a good matcha—there’s that astringency, and then a long finish.”
Dead Comment
If someone wants to call olive oil without grass-clippings-taste "rancid," it's a free country, but that term comes with overbearing negative connotations so I'd personally prefer "aged" or something.
There's an initial flavor that can be idiosyncratic to where the olives were grown-- to me it's quite a bit more savory and subtle than the same kinds of flavors we associate with wines, but it's usually there.
Then there's kind of aftertaste with a slightly "spicy" burn-- if tasting a small spoonful it can sometimes make people cough.
I actually hesitate to write this as a metric lest some flavor tech in New Jersey reverse engineer it as a target for flavor additives to conola oil or some such.
Other than the California brand others have mentioned, I haven’t found anything of similar quality in a supermarket, including Whole Foods and other high end markets.
But just like some people has bad eye sight, some people has bad smell and taste abilities.
That said, I did the same blind test for balsamic vinegar and everyone vastly preferred the real aged stuff over the American balsamic.
Deleted Comment