I choose olive oil the way I choose wine: by the attractiveness and intrigue of the label.
Currently I’m cooking with Terra Delyssa, a Tunisian extra virgin olive oil in a tall, slender square bottle with a silhouette of a stylized horse on its ochre label. It’s a first-cold-pressed oil, which means it’s high in antioxidants and some good things I can’t remember without googling. The label says it’s named after “Queen Elyssa who introduced the olive oil culture to carthage in 814 B.C.”
The copy editor in me wants to insert a comma after Elyssa and to capitalize Carthage. Then my questioning mind kicks in. Was there more than one Queen Elyssa, thus it’s named after the queen of Carthage, not some other queen? And what is “olive oil culture”? What kind of oil culture did Carthage have before that? And why does she get capital letters but the city doesn’t? Did marketing people put intentional errors on the label to make it seem charmingly translated?
Reading and writing both promote curiosity. And that’s good; a sentence in the small print on an olive oil label can prompt me to learn about the history of ancient Carthage and see what language they speak in Tunisia. But curiosity can be an occupational hazard, with minutes and even hours wasted pursuing answers as a work avoidance technique. Then a writer must allow her inner editor to collaborate, to say, “Yes, this detail belongs here; that one, fascinating as it is, does not.”
I don’t know how much research Barbara Crooker did in composing “Ode to Olive Oil, ” but her choices of what to include are, to my tastes, just right.
Ode to Olive Oil
From hard green drupes
of bitter flesh, a river
of gold and green— From
trees bent like old women
whose leaves flash
olive drab to silver
in the hot breeze,
a bowlful of summer—
The transmutation:
flesh of the tree to liquid amber—
Picked by hand, collected in nets,
the willow baskets fill with fruit,
spill into wooden boxes,
are crushed between wheels
of stone, pits and all.
You can marry it with aceto balsamico
to dress your salad, gilding emerald
and ruby leaves— You can ladle
it on white beans and sage, drizzle
it on sun-warm tomatoes, lace it
in minestrone, bathe garlic heads
for roasting. You can make it
into soap, rub it with mint leaves
for migraine. Take a spoonful
to prevent hangover. Mash
it with rosemary and all the pain
is gone from creaky knees.
Velvet on the tongue. The light
of late afternoons. I am eating
sunshine, spread on bread;
primroses open in my mouth.
my chin gleams yellow,
the opposite of a halo,
but one surely even the saints
would recognize and bless.
I love this poem for teaching me the word drupes (fruits with stones) and for its attention to the origins of olive oil and all the work necessary for the fruit of those trees in Tunisia to become liquid gold in my kitchen in Pittsburgh. I love the pairing of “willow baskets” and “wooden boxes”—the alliteration and repetition of the w b, w b; the identical rhythm; the source materials of willow and wood, and the sense of the suppleness of the first and stiffness of the second; the made containers of baskets and boxes, and even the reverse internal echo, the sk sound inside baskets and the ks sound inside boxes. I love the “you can” litany of things to do with olive oil (and the poetic implication that if I simply mash it with rosemary from my windowsill, my creaky knees will miraculously be healed). I admire the way she observes other transmutations in the final stanza.
A poetry buddy and I have been working through Crooker’s book More, which begins with the epigraph “Everybody’s got a hungry heart,” and holds many choices for the “Eating and Drinking Poems” column, among them “Salt, ” “Ode to Chocolate” and “Peaches.” I chose this one for its new-to-me dish. This recipe from Saveur calls for dried beans, but I used canned navy beans.
Writing prompt
Write your own ode to a condiment. Research it; imagine it; let your writer and editor work together on what to tell and what to simply savor in your mind.
White Beans With Sage
Ingredients
1 lb. (2½ cups) dried navy or cannellini beans
1 medium onion, halved
1 head garlic, split in half
8 fresh sage leaves
5 black peppercorns
3⁄4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
Place beans in a heavy pot with enough water to cover. Bring water to a boil, then strain beans and return to pot. Add fresh water to cover.
Add onion halves, garlic, 6 of the sage leaves, peppercorns, and ½ cup of the olive oil. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until beans are tender, about 45 minutes.
Cool beans, uncovered, in their cooking liquid. Strain. Remove and discard peppercorns. Transfer beans to a mixing bowl. Chop remaining 2 sage leaves and stir into beans, along with remaining ¼ cup olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serves 6-8
Photo by Daxis, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Laura Lynn Brown. Poem used with permission of the author.
- Pandemic Journal: An Entry on Pencil Balancing - August 4, 2020
- Between Friends: Wordplay and Other Playful Bonds - July 25, 2019
- The Power of Curiosity: “Can I Touch Your Hair?” by Irene Latham & Charles Waters - May 29, 2019
Donna Falcone says
I am a fan of olive oil – my favorite part about the Ode to Olive Oil was the sunshine! Sunshine and summer infuse the entire poem – I could feel it soaking into the bent backs of old women (which was my second favorite part of the poem).
Beautiful prompt…. 🙂
Laura Lynn Brown says
Thank you, Donna.
Megan Willome says
I love this, Laura, especially that you and your poetry buddy are going through a collection by one of my favorite poets, Barbara Crooker. I love that this poem includes phrases that are practically recipes alongside, essentially, folk remedies. And I love when you share your inner editor, based in good ol’ AP Stylebook, because I speak that language too.
Two last things: 1) I’ve printed the recipe, so thank you for that. And 2) When I was in “Into the Woods” last year, one of our actresses, who cut her teeth at Disney World, kept a bottle of olive oil hidden backstage from which she’d take a swig between songs. I’ve also seen her perform with a blues band, a shot glass of olive oil beside her.
Laura Lynn Brown says
A shot of olive oil! I’ve heard of whiskey voice, but not olive oil voice.
Sandra Heska King says
I knew not to drink milk before singing, but never heard of swigging olive oil!
Maureen says
I also am a fan of Barbara Crooker.
My little Episcopal parish sells a very good oil from Palestine. It’s fun, if one cooks a lot, to try different oils from different regions. Whenever I can, I try to find the kind of oil mentioned in a recipe. Fortunately, here in the D.C. area, that’s not so difficult.
Diane Wakoski’s ‘The Butcher’s Apron’ is another collection you might want to sample, if you’re not familiar with it.
Laura Lynn Brown says
I’m not familiar with that collection. Thanks for the recommendation, Maureen.
Rick Maxson says
Barbara Crooker is great. We recently ran a poem of hers in EDP, Geology. The above poem is a testament to olive oil’s versatility. I love the reference “a bowlful of summer.”
Here in Eureka Springs we have a little store called Fresh Harvest dedicated to olive oil. It is a room full of canisters of many varieties with their origin and ratings, all available for tasting. Most of the olive oil sold in the supermarkets is mixed with other oils, such as “canola oil,” which is nothing more than a vegetable oil concocted of rapeseed and other vegetables. The bottles are usually tinted to the color of olive oil that has not been tampered with. Genuine olive oil has great varieties the same as fine wine.
http://www.freshharvest.co/
Sandra Heska King says
Now I’m on the hunt for a local olive oil tasting…
Laura Lynn Brown says
Rick, I’ve seen a similar shop here, Two Rivers Olive Oil Company, but I haven’t been in it. You’ve given me a reason to the next time I’m in that neighborhood.
Rick Maxson says
I hope you are as surprised and pleased to experience as was the one one here.
Sharon A Gibbs says
Laura,
Barbara has become one of my favorite poets.
This is so much fun to read, both your post and the poem.
I love the verbs in the third stanza: marry, dress, gilding, ladle, drizzle, lace, and bathe. Dripping with flavor. She tells of the tastes in the last stanza (“velvet on the tongue” and “I am eating sunshine”), and closes with a reverence of halos and saints, and the bless. Like holy water and the sign of the cross.
Sandra Heska King says
I’ve been mixing olive oil and balsamic for my Brussels sprouts. And dipping good crusty bread in it mixed with herbs Oh…
I love the “eating sunshine.”
Monica Sharman says
Wow, Laura, thank you. I want to start choosing olive oil the way you do. My normal way was to buy the most economical choice. But doing it that way definitely doesn’t stimulate a questioning mind.
Now I want to make a special trip to The Olive Tap, where they sell several kinds of olive oil and balsamic vinegars in rows of metal kegs. You can open the tap of each keg to taste everything.
https://www.theolivetap.com/manitou-springs-colorado/
Monica Sharman says
Come to think of it, The Olive Tap sounds like a great place for my next Artist Date.
Violet N. says
Thanks for this fun prompt! My poem “Mustard” is here: https://vnesdolypoems.wordpress.com/2017/02/10/mustard/
Laura Lynn Brown says
And thanks for this fun poem, Violet! I especially love the line “parson at the emulsification nuptials of oil and vinegar.”
Laurie Klein says
Laura, just slid in on a whim to read this delicious post and feel more awake, even a tad Mediterranean now, as I face the day, the imagined golden slick of oil so fruity and rich in my mind I almost sense it on my tongue—my yellow brick road for this weekend morning when I’ll soon mist the skillet with olive oil, then fluff up a cheesy, green onion omelette with a slash of mango salsa for breakfast.
I too admire Barbara Crooker and loved reviewing her book “Small Rain” (another treasury) for the upcoming issue of Louisiana Literature. She is incomparable. Wakens me to this world in so many ways.
As do you. Thanks so much for this post. Time to cook . . .
ps Years ago I bought a bottle of hoity-toity olive oil mostly for the arty, embossed container, which I still use.
SimplyDarlene says
Really, now. Olive oil isn’t a condiment, it’s a necessity. A few years ago my mother-in-law went to Italy and when she returned she gave me a dozen olive oil samplers in wonderful miniature bottles. I drizzled them over salads and pastas. Ooolala.