Olive Oil: The Bacon of the Mediterranean!

It’s been about eight years now since I first put forward my theory that “bacon was the olive oil of North America.” The theory has spread steadily through the food world. So much so that a few weeks ago I was being interviewed about Camp Bacon by a food person I really respect and love, and she started into her next question: “I’ve heard,” she said, “that someone called bacon ‘the olive oil of North America.’ What do you think about that?” At first I thought she was messing with me a bit, by sending my own kind of crazy theory back at me. But when she didn’t follow her query with a chuckle, I realized the question was serious. “Well, . . .” I said, slightly stumped for a good response,“I…well…I’m the one who made that up in the first place. I wrote about it in Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon.” She started to apologize for not knowing from whence the idea had originated, but I assured her it was nothing to worry about—the best compliment one can probably have for an idea is when it’s embedded itself so effectively into the culture that no one can remember where it came from.

Two days later I sat down to write about these four great olive oils that had only recently arrived at the Zingerman’s Deli, and it struck me that if my original theory is accurate, then by some unrecognized, yet to be named, transitive property of good food philosophy, the concept would probably work just as well in reverse. Having played around with the thought for a few days, I’ve decided to run with it; olive oil is the bacon of the Mediterranean!

The parallels are clearly there. Both bacon and olive oil have the honor of being the primary fat in the food of their respective regions. Without pork fat it’d be hard to properly prepare much of the traditional food of North America. Even many Native American tribes—who had no hogs to work with until the arrival of Europeans—have woven bacon fat into their regular eating routines. (See Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon for my friend Meg Noori’s recipe for Mac ‘n’ Bacon and her stories of growing up eating oatmeal topped with bacon fat). Same, of course, can clearly be said for olive oil in the Mediterranean—you really can’t properly prepare the traditional foods of Italy, Spain, Sicily, Greece, the Middle East or North Africa without it.

Both bacon and olive oil are critical to the commerce of their home regions, both become prominent subtexts in local and national politics (subsidies, farming, etc.), essential in both legend and lore, a big piece of their area’s economy and, of course, of eating. Both are consumed and cut across class and ethnic lines—pretty much everyone eats and enjoys them.

Bringing my bacon as olive oil theory full circle, I’m going to look into starting up my new campaign slogan—everything is better with olive oil! To keep some alliteration in there maybe it ought better to be “Everything is optimized by olive oil!” Or, “Everything is extraordinary with olive oil!” I’ll work on the wording, but in the mean time I’d recommend that you get going—pretty much everything really is better with olive oil! Personally I’ve been putting this idea into practice for so long now that I’m almost what Maggie at ZingTrain would call “unconsciously competent” about it. I just instinctively put good olive oil on almost everything. Bread, salad, fish, steak, soups, sandwiches, olives, cakes, cookies, and bean dishes, are all delicious when dressed with it. But olive oil is also excellent in places you might not expect: fruit, honey, jam, and your morning toast are all terrific with it. Like bacon, olive oil is also showing up and showing pretty well in places one might not normally expect—I’ve had olive oil mousse, olive oil popcorn, olive oil gelato, olive oil chocolate cake, chocolate bars.

Here are a few thoughts on what you might do with some really good olive oil: