Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil [Hardcover]

Tom Mueller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 5, 2011

The sacred history and profane present of a substance long seen as the essence of health and civilization.

For millennia, fresh olive oil has been one of life's necessities-not just as food but also as medicine, a beauty aid, and a vital element of religious ritual. Today's researchers are continuing to confirm the remarkable, life-giving properties of true extra-virgin, and "extra-virgin Italian" has become the highest standard of quality.

But what if this symbol of purity has become deeply corrupt? Starting with an explosive article in The New Yorker, Tom Mueller has become the world's expert on olive oil and olive oil fraud-a story of globalization, deception, and crime in the food industry from ancient times to the present, and a powerful indictment of today's lax protections against fake and even toxic food products in the United States. A rich and deliciously readable narrative, Extra Virginity is also an inspiring account of the artisanal producers, chemical analysts, chefs, and food activists who are defending the extraordinary oils that truly deserve the name "extra-virgin." 25 black-and-white illustrations

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2011: E.V.O.O. just got a whole lot more complicated. Tom Mueller's Extra Virginity is about as explosive as an expose can get, at least if your subject is liquid fat. The road from tree to table, it turns out, is fraught with corruption, fraud, and laboratory interventions. Mueller shows how and why the trade in adulterated olive oil is about as profitable as the trade in some hard drugs, and with a lot less risk, too. There are equally entertaining detours into olive oil's long history, the politics of regulation and enforcement, and even debates over the best way to taste it (swirl, aerate, spit, or just swig?). All in all, it's a great read not just for foodies, but also for anyone interested in the complexities of global trade and organized crime. --Darryl Campbell

Review

“Starred review. Engrossing history, vivid contemporary reporting and a cogent call to action, expertly blended in an illuminating text.” (Kirkus Reviews )

“The New Yorker writer does for his subject what Susan Orlean did for orchids.” (Columbus Dispatch )

“... [Extra-Virginity] does for olive oil what Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation did for hamburgers. Mueller traces the history of this valuable product from antiquity to the present, but the really disturbing part is his expose of the inferior quality control and outright fraud among today’s’ oil producers.” (Hollywood Reporter )

“How long have readers been waiting for a book like this? A century? A millennium? Finally, the earth's most poetic food has found its storyteller. Essential, smart, and ridiculously overdue.” (Bill Buford, author of Heat )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (December 5, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393070212
• ISBN-13: 978-0393070217
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.9 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (87 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #37,144 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #52 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Gastronomy > History
  • #66 in Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > Hospitality, Travel & Tourism
  • #100 in Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Economic History

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

176 of 186 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An epic battle between first-class quality and commodity pricing November 29, 2011

By Caroline J. Beck

Format:Hardcover

There is no other fruit with a deeper history than the olive. With the publication of Extra Virginity, Tom Mueller has taken it to its bitter end and brings it back again. A book filled with twists and turns that would shame the best mystery writer, Mueller tells a riveting tale about an age-old staple. He explores both ends of the spectrum - the dark, devious world of adulterated oil that has plagued the industry for centuries and a new host of characters from chemists to chefs who are trying to take extra virgin olive oil to a higher level.

It is a story of two opposites: first-class quality doing battle with worldwide commodity pricing and big-money subsidies. Mueller, best known for his 2007 exposé on the world of adulterated olive oil in The New Yorker magazine, spent the last four years delving deep into the subject. When the stakes are as large as a rapidly growing, $1.5 billion business in the U.S. alone, it's understandable that Mueller would uncover an undercurrent of shady dealings.

He introduces readers to a cast of characters from around the world. From "hero" archetypes like Paolo Pasquali of Villa Campestri in Tuscany, a former philosophy professor, who spearheads a new system to protect oil from tree to table to villainous players like Domenico Ribatti, whose illegal activity eventually led to a plea bargain in Italian court. Even Mark Twain gets a mention.

Kudos to the well-deserved acknowledgement of Mike Madison's long years of diligence as a small-scale producer of first class oil. I was only disappointed that there was so little mention of many other ardent, honest and ethical growers in California who are toiling to see extra virgin olive oil gain its rightful place on the shelf. I hope Mueller gets to meet some of them before he completes a sequel.

Caroline J. Beck, The Olive Oil Source

91 of 102 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The olive oil 'tipping point' the world has been waiting for. December 4, 2011

By C. Cord

Format:Hardcover

At a conference in Córdoba, Spain last summer Tom Mueller addressed a gathering of politicians, olive oil producers, scientists and journalists and urged them to repeat the words "extra virgin" three times slowly. The words soon become, he said, "not a food, but a strange religious cult, a language of initiation, or some place on the internet where you really would not want your children to go."

He should know. Mueller is the investigative author whose 2007 piece in The New Yorker, Slippery Buisness: The Trade in Adulterated Olive Oil, forever changed the discourse about olive oil quality by uncovering plenty of places you wouldn't want your children to go.

Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil is Mueller's first book and, while the title emphasizes the weight and complexity of those words, it's all about people.

Mueller is driven by a profound respect for the dedicated people who make good olive oil and a disdain for the fraudsters and profiteers who have always had their way with us. But much more than just getting in the faces of the good guys and the bad guys, he tells why it matters. And then you get it -- you understand what olive oil really is, and why so many care about it so deeply.

After 256 engrossing pages that go by way too quickly, someone who never contemplated the tin of olive oil on the kitchen counter will know why it has brought out the best, and the worst in people for thousands (yes thousands) of years.

I tore through the book, then went back to the beginning and tore through it again. The only times I paused were to read a passage over to take it in a second time, marveling at Mueller's way with words.

Readers of these pages know this is a critical time for the status of olive oil in the world. Producers in every region teeter on the edge of viability as a crisis of impossibly low prices -- brought on by low-quality, often fraudelent oils and shady business practices -- grinds on and on.

The European olive oil behemoths, or as Mueller calls them, "Big Oil," will soon lose to some significant degree the subsidies that have long allowed them to undersell competitors. And New World producers, bolstered in part by Mueller's 2007 exposé, are calling the Old Guard out, challenging the quality of their olive oils, and joining forces to fight for your business.

There is a lot at stake. Olive oil is, as Mueller put it, "an age-old food with space-age qualities that medical science is just beginning to understand."

Extra virgin olive oil has been found to be extremely good for you -- in ways we could have never imagined. But when we head to the local store to buy the extra virgin olive oil we've been reading about, very often what we bring home is something else entirely.

"A swift and widespread dumbing-down of olive oil quality has occurred, which in the end is everybody's loss," Mueller writes.

Andreas März, a Swiss agronomist and olive farmer who began his own investigation into olive oil adulteration in 2004, told Mueller "So long as smelly, rancid oils and first-rate oils with the perfume of fresh olives bear the same name, quality producers in Italy and throughout the Mediterranean have no possibility of covering their costs. So long as olive producers are unable to earn a fair profit for their olives and olive oil, groves will die out."

What a shame that would be, when there are so many mouths to feed -- so many cultures who are just now discovering this ancient food that would help them live longer.

Tom Mueller humanizes the hotbed of olive oil today in a way that is clear, credible and compelling. Extra Virginity, which will be released December 5th, could well prove to be the olive oil tipping point the world has been waiting for.

Curtis Cord
Executive Editor, Olive Oil Times

90 of 103 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating and Provocative November 30, 2011

By Nathan J. Ver Burg

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Extra Virginity reveals a glimpse into the hidden world of olive oil, which has been widely unseen until now. Tom's hard-hitting report presents vivid narratives of both honor and fraud within the olive oil industry and brings the explicit truth to much-needed light.

This corruption, unexamined for far too long, is very real. Working in the corporate olive oil industry, we perpetually come up against the lack of understanding and concern for truly how much adulterated olive oil is on the market today. It's disturbing how many well known food companies and olive oil suppliers are not being held responsible for their deliberate label misrepresentations, and as a result, consumers are being taken advantage of.

Tom Mueller's insightful history finally brings this prolific issue of adulteration into view for all to see. Echoing the comments by Bill Buford, this book is "ridiculously overdue" and is regarded with the utmost respect and value.

Nathan J. Ver Burg, Centra Foods