Let’s make olive oil (not war)!

Here it is, at last. That special time of the year when olive-trees and vineyards generously bestow their fruits upon us.

I remember sitting under our olive-trees in the garden of our country-house in Sant’Angelo in Lizzola when I was a child. I remember I used to sit there for hours, writing on my own diary, while mother cried out my name to inform me that supper was being served. We used to make our own olive-oil at that time and we still keep making our olive-oil today. Time goes by, we grow, we change, but our olive-oil has always the same, comforting, sweet taste. To me, our olive-oil is what Madeleins were to Proust (I apologize for the comparison but I tend to get carried away when dealing with childhood memories!).

The Province of Pesaro and Urbino (where I live) produces a well-known olive-oil called “Cartoceto PDO oil”, being Cartoceto the name of one of the municipalities where the olive-oil is made (the others are: Saltara, Serrungarina and Mombaroccio, and part of the municipality of Fano). Our country-house is about 15 kms away from Mombaroccio, so our family likes to think our own olive-oil is PDO too.

However we do not need a certification to prove our oil “special”. It is special no matter the characteristics it may have. Our olive-trees were there when my grandparents were still alive and used to help us pick olives; they were there for my little cat, Pflip, to climb on their tops; they were there for me to climb on when I wanted to hide from the rest of our large family (especially when I was supposed to be setting the table!).

Maybe our olive-oil is not better than any you find in supermarkets. But it’s our olive-oil. And you may bet tradition will go on with our daughter Costanza and on and on…