An Oil Odyssey-
There's a clicking clacking humming through the Kampos. It isn’t the mating call of giant crickets, nor is there a tribal dance involving long sticks amongst the silver foliage. The vast activity afoot, and up branches, is noticeably frantic this year. Everyone’s at it, and for good reason. Lesvos is home to fields of gold.
The production of olive oil dates back 4,000 years
Every year, people throughout the globe go through over 2.25 million litres of olive oil, with Greece being the world’s third largest producer of edible olives and oil. Spread around the country are 120 million olive trees, and Lesvos is home to approximately 11 million of them. Mitilinian oil is famously considered one of the best in Greece. The island isn’t known for large individual farms, and harvesting, especially in the western parts, is still done in the same primitive ways of the ancients. Large machinery would be useless because of the many remote, hard to reach groves.
The oldest Greek olive tree is believed to be between 3000 and 5000 years old
With ideal climate and soil conditions, Lesvos is home to the Kolovi and Adramytiani varieties. It is believed that olive oil production here started in the Bronze Age, and now each year there are 100,000 tons of olives harvested, from which 20,000 tons of oil are obtained.
In 500 BC Herodotus wrote that olive trees were so sacred that only virgins and Eunuchs should be allowed to touch them
Globally, due to bad weather and disease, production has decreased resulting in a surge in price and demand. Value in Greece alone has gone up astronomically, with a 17 litre tin now reaching prices of anything up to 150 euro each. No wonder houses are deserted with crowds bustling to their lands, nets and sticks trailing behind them.
A single tree can produce up to 20 gallons of oil per year
The harvesting method mostly used in Western Lesvos is “pole beating”, which involves hitting the branches with long sticks of chestnut wood (stronger than olive wood), letting the olives fall onto the nets already placed under the trees. Then carefully combing the olives from other fallen debris, they are collected into sacks and sent away to the olive press. The less leaves and sticks in the contents results in purer oil. And studies have found that olives harvested by hand and pressed within 36 hours yield better quality oil which remains fresher for longer.
Olive oil is the healthiest in vegetable oils, loaded with antioxidants and free from carbohydrates, fats, and cholesterol
Secret codes are whispered into ears from darkened corners, “Did you hear him from down the road only got a 11 to one today?!” and “Can you believe next door got a five to one!”. This my friends is olive code, eleven kilos to one litre of oil needs commiserating, but they should be buying the rounds with five kilos to one.
Farmers in Crete have begun using GPS devices disguised as olives in their trees to deter thieves
Forget owning a mansion, will olive groves be overtaking the property market? Will sales of tiles decrease, with tents in demand?
But more importantly, the question is whether the family on mainland will be getting their annual gift of a tin this year, or did it “get lost” on ferry route…
Post by Nikki Franks Falloon
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