WEBVTT - Olive Oil: Mother Nature's Gift 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:05.160 Do Do Do do? Do you like that? Huh oh, 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:09.040 I never get tired of the trumpet fair of Josh Clark. 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:12.400 That's right. So that means that there's a new announcement 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.640 for a new show. Uh. Fans in San Francisco and 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.400 the Bay Area in general and northern California should not 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.360 be surprised that we are coming back to s F 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.919 Sketch Fest for what is this four years in a row, 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:30.560 easily for if not five. Yes, it is one of 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.120 our favorites. It is the premier comedy festival in the 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.160 country in my opinion, and we are always super happy 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.200 that our buddy Janet Barney invites us back. Yep. So 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:44.199 on Thursday, January sevent Chuck, we are going to be 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.639 doing a stuff you should know live show at the Castro, right, 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:53.040 that is correct. And the next day on Friday, we're 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:55.520 both doing our own thing too, so you can see 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.440 Josh and Chuck and then Josh and Chuck. Yeah. Actually 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:01.520 I think I'm on Saturday, but yeah, okay, Well mine's 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.520 on the eighteenth on Friday, and I'm doing an End 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.280 of the World live show where you can come here 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:08.840 and we talk about the end of the world and 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.479 all the reasons we should try to not let that happen. 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:13.399 It should be pretty cool, that's right. And I'll be 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.160 doing my second ever live movie Crush with very special 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.400 live guest, Busy Phillips, and we'll be talking about the great, 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.560 great Noah bomboch classic film Kicking and Screaming, one of 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.120 my favorite movies. Awesome. So you can get all the 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.240 information you need and tickets by going to the s 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:33.160 F Sketch Fest website. Uh and they will have schedules, tickets, 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.520 all that jazz, and we will eventually have links up 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.160 I'm sure on s Y s K Live and we 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.679 will see you San Francisco in January. Tickets go on 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:47.200 sale tomorrow. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:56.560 Stuff Works dot com. Hey you, welcome to the podcast. 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:01.400 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant's Jerry over there, 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.880 and this is Stuff you Should Know, the flowing podcast 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:11.680 of all time. Pretty great. You're getting good at those, 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.959 Oh man, you'd think after ten years i'd actually be decent. Adam, 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:21.680 you're getting good, getting sharp ten years, Chuck, good lord, 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:27.000 going on eleven dude, Yeah, you know, yep, it's true. 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.840 Eventually it will be eleven, that's right, and then twelve 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.320 and then pretty much of infinity after that. I would 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.000 guess when you say, I feel like we're almost daring 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:42.560 each other to keep going at this point. You know. Yeah, 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.680 instead of doing that, Chuck, instead of just going on 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.760 like this, let's do alive oil instead. Yeah. Man, it's 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.240 kind of cool that ten and a half years in 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:58.239 you can still look around the world and say, or 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.720 looking our pantry for that matter, sure and say, man, 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:06.720 olive oil. That's topic up next. Those little cinnamon candy 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:12.560 toppings that you put on cakes. It's after olive oil. Obviously, 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.000 it's just intuitive. But Chuck, I think you should announced 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:20.000 everybody who wrote this article for us. Yeah, the Grabster. 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.160 We've we've been lucky enough to uh to get the 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:25.400 Grabster to kind of pump out more articles for us 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.000 here in the near future. Yep, we just Grabster. That's right. 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.400 It's super great because the Grabster does really good research 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.560 and gives us good stuff. So we are basing this 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.480 one on a Grabster article, which is just phenomenal. It's 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:42.720 been a while, yeah, man, so, um so there's a 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.520 lot of pressure on Ed during this entire um episode, 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:48.600 I guess is what we're trying to say. I think 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.400 he nailed it. This is very thorough. It is yeah, 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.600 he's he's good like that man, And it is um. 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:56.680 It's so thorough, in fact, that I think we should 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.600 just go ahead and start at the beginning, the very beginning, 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.640 which is basically where Ed started it. He fast forwarded 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:07.040 a little past the the um the cooling of the earth, 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.880 but then picks up where um where olives actually started. 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:16.120 And apparently, in a two thousand and thirteen study of 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:23.159 um chlora blast no chlora plast um, d NA jeans 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:26.839 in olives. Apparently that is a part of an alive that, 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:30.039 like from tree to tree along a lineage, the d 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.359 NA gets passed along, so you can actually trace the 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:37.960 lineage of trees. Some researchers traced the lineage of olives 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:42.720 domesticated olives all the way back about six to eight 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:47.719 thousand years ago, somewhere around the border between Turkey and Syria. 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.479 That is where the first person said, Hey, I kind 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:53.920 of like the cut of your jib wild olives, but 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.640 I think I can make you a little better. Let 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:00.760 me harness you and force you into domestication. Here you 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.200 go into the ground between what will eventually be Syria 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:06.640 and Turkey. Yeah, and that's like you were saying, just 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:11.200 when people caught on two, you know, like domesticating a 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:15.400 wild animal. But wild olives they've been around as long 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:17.800 as olive trees have been around, and olive trees have 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:22.200 been around, Like there's evidence that you know, fossilized pollen 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.920 and evidence that shows that took Took and all all 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:31.000 his gang we're eating olives, right, Yeah, they were eating olives, 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:33.800 and then so were their bird friends were eating olives too, 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.559 and wild olives are, like, I think, a little more bitter, 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:41.880 and they're smaller, which is why that that early um 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.200 horticulturists that I can do better. I'm a human being. 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.120 I basically owned this planet, so I'm gonna make this 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:50.719 olive tree do what I wanted to. And they did. 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.400 They olives grew bigger and less bitter. I don't want 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.119 to say sweeter because that's not quite quite the right word, 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:01.200 but it's just less bitter, more edible, and over time 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.880 they they've resulted in something like seven hundred different cultivars, 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:10.120 which a cultivars um with olives or with any plant, 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.839 it's a. It's a version of the same species, but 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.599 it has different characteristics. Yeah, because of the human hand. 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.080 The human hand. Excuse me. So when we got involved 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:24.440 and we said, hey, let's domesticate this stuff, we did 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:29.080 so because of those reasons. Um, maybe we want different 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.280 kinds of olive us. Maybe we want to scale this 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.599 thing and have an olive grove and get a higher yield. 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.120 Maybe you want them bigger and fatter, Maybe we want 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:41.320 them less bitter. So depending on who was growing them 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:45.479 and domesticating them. Uh, it really kind of varied on 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:47.000 what kind of all of you were going to get. 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:51.039 But the point is there were lots of different kinds 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.520 of and still many many different kinds of olives. Would 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.719 you say, seven hundred seven hundred cultivars from what I saw, Yeah, 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:58.560 and they're all just a little bit different from their 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.599 little buddy next to them. Yeah. At some point somebody said, oh, 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.520 I'd love to see an orange all of No one's 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:06.440 ever done an orange all before, and they just got 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.760 to work doing that, and now we have Actually I 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.120 don't think that exists, but that's a pretty good example 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.640 of what could have happened had somebody a thousand years 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:16.800 ago said I want to see what an orange all 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.720 of looks like. We would have an orange alive cultivar. 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.440 That's right, But that's it. I mean, it's just basically 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.760 difference in size shape also the size of the tree, 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.840 the shape of the tree, all all of trees. Remembering 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:32.560 our pando Um episode, how could I forget? Man, that's 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.880 a good one. I love pando as well, Chuck Um. 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.000 But we were talking about long lived trees. Alive trees 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:44.560 are like pretty long lived themselves. There's a couple they're 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:46.480 supposed to be two thousand years old. And I saw 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.880 one called the olive tree of vuvess on Crete and 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.920 it's thought to be three thousand years old, and it's 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:58.800 one it's it's just a perfect tree. Have you seen it? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.920 because Creedeas was the seat. Crete was the seat. That's 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.040 what it says on all the t shirts olive seat. 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.040 Right back in the day during the Bronze Age, I 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:11.840 believe um create was like the seat of olive oil 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.080 production for the world. And there's a temple at Nos Sos. 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:16.760 I think that's how you say it right in the 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:21.160 case Island. Yeah, yeah, it's not Canosis, okay um That 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:23.600 temple is thought to have housed I guess at any 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:27.880 given times sixteen thousand gallons of olive oil at any 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:30.280 at any point, like you could walk in there and 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:35.400 you would find about sixteen thousand gallons in clay amphory. Yeah. 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:37.600 As and as far as the tree goes, like you said, 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:42.520 they can't. They generally are very old, they grow very slowly, UM, 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:44.480 and like you said, they can range in size. It's 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.680 it's pretty uncommon to have super tall ones because we 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.520 have domesticated them to be a little bit easier to cultivate, 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:57.319 which means smaller and shorter summer like shrubs sometimes uh 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.120 as far as North America and South America. They are 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.680 not native to our lands, although um they do grow 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.800 because Europeans brought them over. So now the United States, 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:13.520 in Mexico, h Chile, Argentina and Australia successfully produce olive 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.720 oil outside of the UM. Obviously the Mediterranean region which 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:21.240 is still I think Tunisia, Italy and Spain or are 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:23.400 the people who are really pumping that stuff out right 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:25.839 the leaders for sure. And the reason I mentioned our 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:30.880 bird friends UM is because olives actually spread really easily. 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.439 Birds I guess eat the olives poop the seeds out, 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.480 which I feel bad for a bird because all of 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:43.160 pits are fairly big, you know sure, I mean if 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:44.959 you were I wouldn't want to poop out in all 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:46.880 of pit I can imagine if I were a tiny 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:49.280 little bird, that'd be a big ordeal. But that's how 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:53.280 all of trees like spread And since they thrive actually 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:58.600 in fairly semi arid conditions like too much waters not 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:03.120 good for him. They can survive cold snaps pretty well. Uh, 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.520 they spread pretty easily, and they can be grown all 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.960 over the place, not just in the Mediterranean. Yeah. And 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.599 ed h, I love how he put it here, like basically, 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.760 don't take me or anyone else to task about all 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:21.400 these dates because domestication of the olive tree and the 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.600 and the beginnings of olive oil could have started in 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.760 different places around the world at different times. Um. And 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.400 he said, basically, it's not important to try and like 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:36.200 nail down a specific date and region because it is conflicting. 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:39.560 And what's important is is that the olive and the 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.480 olive oil industry. Uh. Well, I guess it's an industry now, 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.800 but back then it was just called olive oil. Um. 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:51.439 It was super important. It wasn't just it's not just oil, 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:54.920 you know, it was important to religion and culture and 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.839 really had a had a big impact on these ancient empires. Yeah, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.640 makes the point to say, like this, this region that 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.920 produced like the world's three major religions, or two of them, 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.880 at least three of them, three of the four, the 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:16.960 big four. I'm going with that now, the Big five Man, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:21.640 and scientology, right, the Big four. Okay, let me just 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.839 say that it produced three of the world's major religions 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.440 also some of the great great earliest cultures. Um, they 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.959 all came about in this place where olives and then 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:37.679 olive oil production was pretty pretty widespread and plentiful. And 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.120 he doesn't go so far as to say like one 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.920 necessarily influenced the other, but they were definitely intertwined. And 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:47.440 it's it's you can make the case, like you know, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.320 they didn't say, um, you know, chicken eggs are for 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.160 the gods or something like that, al of o is. 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:58.040 It's special in its own strange way to human culture, 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:03.560 especially the earliest, um, faint famous contours of human culture. Yeah, 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:06.599 and so important that even the word oh I l 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.600 just for all the oils is derived from the Latin 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:16.200 word for olive oil, specifically oleum, So you could, you know, 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:18.480 you could even say that olive oil is sort of 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:21.840 the the o g the original oil, right, And it's 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:26.559 like Popeye's girlfriend would be olive olive oil, that's right? 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:31.000 Or which is or just color oleum? For surely that 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.079 was his pet name for Uh. Should we take a break? 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:36.679 I think so, we're starting to get a little charged up. 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.720 Might as well defuse it, and all right, we'll be 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.640 back to talk about how olive oil played apart in 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:58.600 all this culture and mythology. Let's all right, Chuck. So, 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:03.600 as I mentioned oiler alert, um, Christianity is one of 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.480 the world's big three religions, and olive oil makes an 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:11.280 appearance in it. Did you know that I did? Um, well, 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:15.719 olives do at least? Yeah, and Ed actually over delivered here, 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.680 I think, oh ye, yeah, I agree, he was. He 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.640 was kind of showing his stuff. He got excited. But 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.079 what we'll go through some of these um. Obviously, in 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.199 the Book of Genesis, if anyone's ever heard the story 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:30.240 of Noah, after the flooding, Noah sends out that dove 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:35.080 and says, hey, dude, go out there and see what's what, 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.560 what we have in store for us, what's alive, what's dead? 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:42.120 And give me a report. And the dove said, sure thing, Noah, 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.160 and flew away and came back with an olive branch. 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:51.920 So it might sound like someone's under delivering, Mr Dove, 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.280 but what that meant was is there's life out there 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.560 because the olive tree is growing and everyone loves olives. 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.600 Right there you go. That was the implication. Chuck. You're 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.120 basically a biblical scholar at this point pretty much. But 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:10.880 I mean, think about the dove carrying the olive branch, 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.880 like that's almost worldwide. Somebody can point to that and 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.520 be like, yeah, that's that's a good feeling. Is what 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:18.520 that symbolized. We all know what that means. That means 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.200 there's a fight coming, right or somebody doesn't want to 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.880 fight anymore. So here's here's an olive branch that I 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.040 taped to a dove and I'm throwing it at you. 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:33.360 What else? Um Oh. One of the things that struck 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.960 me was that olive oil wasn't always used as um food. 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.120 It was used as definitely as an offering to the gods. 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:44.280 It was portioned out very exactly and precisely, and we 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.640 actually have um tablets with linear B writing for the 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:52.400 Messenian culture that show that it was um taking very seriously. 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:54.600 It was like you get this little quarter ouns of 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.400 olive oil. You get this quarter ouns of olive oil, 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.040 sign your name here to say you got your olive 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.320 oil kind of thing, and then part of it even 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:05.040 goes to the gods, right right, Yeah, that's yeah exactly, 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:10.080 and they have to sign for it, they do zeus um. 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:14.000 But then it was also used in bathing culture as well. Yeah, 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:18.280 I mean Emily has olive oil and her soap, right, Okay, 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.520 so this was a little less soapy than that. This 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:24.680 is a little more straightforward wherein you would take I 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.840 believe this was the Greeks, right or the Romans? Uh, 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.120 what's the difference? Now? It was in Athens. Okay. So 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.480 the ancient Athenians would use all of oil that was 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.040 infused with like an herb or something like that and 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.600 pour it on their body and then use a stick 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:45.280 called the sturgil to scrape it off, and that was bathing. 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:48.920 Part of bathing, I should say, I just made so 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:53.040 many Italians and Greeks mad because you said this is 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.120 the same thing. Well, I mean, it's to be fair. 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:01.360 Rome definitely modeled its culture almost exclusively classical grease. So 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.480 come on, I was just joking though. Sure they know that. 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:06.880 Give it, give him. I was just choking into like 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:13.040 a stereotypical Italian accent. That'll complete it. He's just a joke, 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:17.520 you know, perfect man. So Uh, of course ancient Egypt 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.000 was involved. Um, it feels like anytime you're talking about 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.280 some great you know, from olive oil to peanut butter, 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:26.920 well not peanut butter, you can go find it on 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:29.880 the walls of the tombs of ancient Egypt. Uh. And 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.880 of course the Romans just like it's either the Roman 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.440 Empire or the Chinese or the ones who are gonna 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:39.240 make advances by leaps and bounds. And in terms of 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.280 olive oil, it was the Roman Empire who was like 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.800 really got those agricultural techniques down pat for kind of 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.000 scaling it on, you know, as far as their scale goes. Plus, 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.840 they were the first ones to really spread olive oil 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:57.760 production beyond the Mediterranean and I think the Middle East. Um, 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:02.080 because the Roman Empire spread so far and because olive 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.960 oil is such an integral part of that culture. They 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.480 took olive oil basically everywhere with them, and olive oil 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:12.520 cultivation or production, all of cultivation and olive oil production 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:17.200 went far and wide because of the Romans. And again, 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:19.159 one of the reasons why they were able to spread 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.680 the stuff far and by is because alive trees grow 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.360 pretty well and all sorts of different climates. As long 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.680 as they're not over watered, they're gonna do okay. They 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:34.440 like bright sunlight. They're hardy, evergreen shrub like trees. Um though, 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:40.000 you can get more all lives by by watering them, 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.639 um more than just neglecting them, But you don't want 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.199 to over fertilize them. From what I understand, there's like 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:50.240 a lot of they're really low maintenance fruit bearing trees 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.120 from what I can tell, But yes, they're there. You 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.200 step up the fertilizer, you step up the water if 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.720 you want to like do commercial alive oil production. But 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:01.520 if you just have like an olive tree at home 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.200 and you're just growing it for fun, it's you can 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:05.840 go out of town for a while and not have 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.760 to worry about your olive tree. Gina, who's into this, 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:15.240 uh big time. Uh, Chad Crowley, he's into growing olives. Well, 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:19.280 he's into olive oil and like to the point where 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:23.439 like his retirement job might be olive oil, like olive 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.879 farming and growing and cultivating. Does he grow olives? No, 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.639 but he's he's into it, like doing a degree that 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:31.760 I didn't fully understand until I talked to him about 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.760 It's really cool. We should tell everybody, all the millions 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.320 of people listening who don't know who Check Crowley is. 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:41.440 He directed? Um that our TV show Stuff. You should 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:43.960 know the TV show. He was the director, producer. He 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:45.800 had a lot to do with it, and that scarred 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:47.600 him so much that he just wants to go live 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:51.040 on an olive farm. It's pretty much right. So the 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:55.960 fruit of the olive tree is the olive, and they 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:00.359 they ripen to black, purple, sometimes a little red. Um. 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:02.159 If you see a green olive, that means it's not 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.920 ripe yet. I did not know that, did you know? 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:08.880 Because I hate olives? Yeah, that's right. I was kind 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.840 of hoping that I had like imagined that, But I 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:15.119 don't like olives. That's crazy, man, I love olives. A 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:19.040 lot of people don't like olives, dude, that's crazy. Whatever, 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.119 they're crazy. They're crazy. They're crazy, all of you crazy. Know, 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:27.680 it's called personal taste that we respect. I guess, remember, 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:32.480 I guess I keep forgetting when it comes to olives. Yeah, 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:38.040 so as uh, the the oil in the olive um 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.160 increases as it ripens, so you want them. It's kind 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:45.560 of a a very tight line that you walk as 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.919 an olive farmer because you want these things to ripen 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.199 as much as possible to get the most oil. But 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:54.920 if they overripen and then just start falling off the tree, 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:57.600 they're no good. You gotta pick it off the tree. 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:02.080 So like winemakers, it's a very stressful thing to watch 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:04.879 that crop, I can imagine, and it comes down to 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.680 sometimes the day or the hour of the day to 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.399 really maximize your yield. Yeah, because if you think about it, 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:13.960 you know, you have an olive tree with a bunch 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:16.959 of olives growing on it. You have to time the 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.200 the ripening of those olives not under ripe, not over ripe, 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.600 but also not every olive on that tree is going 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.560 to ripen simultaneously, so so you not only do you 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:28.560 have to time it so that they're right, but the 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.800 maximum number of olives on that tree are right at 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.919 any given period too. But up beet. That is super 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:39.920 stressful farming, way more stressful than corn farming. Corn basically 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:42.560 grows itself. You just sit around in your easy chair 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:45.240 and say, hurry up, corn, getting your your basket. Yeah, 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:47.159 and then it just farts it off the tree right 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:50.640 onto your plate the stalk and does a little bow 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.639 and says how do you do? And you just clap 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:59.680 from your easy chairs. And I love corn trees so 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:02.879 uh some. I mean, if you have a small farm 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:07.320 and you're like an old, old family business, and in Italy, 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.359 let's say, you might still be hand picking these things, 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:15.480 which is great. But big major operations they have what 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:19.800 they called shaker machines and they drive through the farm 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:22.480 and shake the tree. Have you ever seen one of 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.600 those things? Yeah? And shaker machines are I mean, it's 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:27.600 not just specific to olive trees. They use them for 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.119 all sorts of fruiting trees. They just they just shake it. 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:35.280 They do. It's like the trees like and it's like okay, 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.920 that's over. It's it's kind of interesting to see. And 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.720 then like there's a I guess a catch that catches 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:42.960 the stuff falling off the tree and then it shoots 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:45.399 it up a conveyor belt over into like a truck 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:48.280 driving beside it. There you go, you just harvested a 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:50.720 bunch of olives. Boom. But that's a that's like a 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:54.479 commercial thing. That's a commercial Oh yeah operation. Right, Like 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:56.520 if you have if you're like a mom and pop 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.960 operation like you were saying, or if you're you're harvesting 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:03.000 from very very old trees, you would not use one 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:05.960 of those machines. Yeah, you wouldn't want to go to 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:09.840 a thousand year old olive tree and and introduce it 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.680 to the shaker machine. Mean, that would be so mean. 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:16.480 It's like I've seen empires rise and fall, and now 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.080 some jerk has got a new haul and shaker machine 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:25.560 running that runs on diesel. Yeah, thanks Todd. So flavor 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:28.480 of an olive oil is going to depend on a 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:31.400 lot of things. And and olive oil and wine they 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:33.320 grow in similar regions a lot of times, and they 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:36.280 have a lot of similarities, which is why often when 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:38.800 you'll go to wine country, there'll be a wine shop 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:42.320 that also sells olive oil, or an olive oil store 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:45.440 that also sells wine. And you start to wonder where 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.639 where's the line? Dude? You me and I went to 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:53.399 Calistoga in either Sonoma or Napa, I cannot remember. I 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:57.880 think it's Napa. And it's absolutely true. It's there's like 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:00.240 they're they're almost one and the same as just go 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:02.399 from a wine shop too, an olive oil shop, but 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.240 they're just it's the most amazing olive oil you've ever 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:07.600 tasted in your life. That's the best I want. So 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:09.639 it just to be clear, you hate all of us, 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:11.960 but you like olive oil, and I understand they're totally different. 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:14.359 Oh yeah, I love olive oil. Okay, So have you 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:16.680 have you gone to olive oil shops and just done 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:20.280 like little shots of olive oil? Dozens and dozens? Aren't 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:23.720 they just amazing? Yeah? Man, I like the grassy kind. 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:28.239 I like the nutty kind. But it's and I think 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:32.240 I've told you this before, really good olive oil can 0:23:32.359 --> 0:23:34.879 really give me like a chemical burn on my throat. 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:38.080 So it has to have like kind of a buttery 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:41.440 quality to it, I guess for me to really like it. Yeah, 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:43.240