Olive Oil Tasting

Many of you have probably attended wine tastings (though I never have.) Last night, however, I went to an olive oil tasting. Some people tell me this is becoming popular in the U.S.

I went to a very small restaurant/bar in Genmayze, where 14 of us were seated at a long table. A woman from a local NGO explained to us how most Lebanese olive oil is garbage. Though of course the Lebanese and people from the villages are very proud of their traditional agricultural products.

Extra virgin is cold pressed and has no more than .8% acidity. But even if oil passes the laboratory tests for acidity and peroxide levels, it still can't be considered "extra virgin" until a professional taster deems it as such. If olive oil is labeled "pure", "refined", or "light", run the other way--full speed! Its taste and acidity has been chemically controlled.

In 2004, 3% of olive oil production in Lebanon was classified as extra virgin. Today, through the work of NGOs educating small farmers (defined as having less than 5 dollum, 5,000 square feet), who are 50% of the growers, the production is now at 10%.

It's a very sensitive process that entails not hitting the trees with sticks (which also stymies their production the following season), to not putting them in bags but leaving them in crates, to taking them to the press in less than 48 hours, and using a modern mill, instead of the traditional stone ones (which are 87% in Lebanon) because that exposes the paste to air which starts fermentation.

The ideal time to harvest is in October when the color changes from green to black. But Lebanese farmers usually wait until later in the season when the olives are fatter.

I was riveted by all this information.

Then came the practicum.

In front of me were 5 plastic cups with some olive oil. Foil covered the tops, and they were labeled A through E. With full concentration, we were to hold the cup in front of us, and then put it in the palm of our other hand, turning it in a small circle, to mix it up and heat it up. Then we were to smell and put the foil back on.

Then, we were supposed to line them up from best to worst. The best is if you took an olive from the tree and squeezed it. The worst is you're at a stone mill, with a car running outside, the exhaust mixing with people smoking cigarettes, and people stepping on the stuff, and using dirty crates and machines--chemical contamination.

D and E were about the same and the best. They had that robust, distinctive olive oil scent that I've come to appreciate since I've come to Lebanon. A was insipid and bland. B and C were both putrid and chemically.

Then we tasted. I slirped it back, hearing the air slide through my teeth and cross my tongue. In between, I ate apples and drank water to clear my palette.

After that, I deemed E to be the best and C to be the worst.

Check it out!!!

A is the best and most pure.

D and E are contaminated!!!! B and C are the best but a year old, so they got rancid. Olive oil isn't good the following year. It lasts 18 months at the most.

So I thought D and E were the best because that's what I've gotten used to from living here for so long. I'm always eating the real-deal stuff that people buy from their neighbors in the village. And really, it's all contaminated! That robust, distinct flavor is exhaust and cigarettes and other pollutants.

Wow! It's like my whole world has been turned upside-down. . .

Being Black in Lebanon

Being black in Lebanon means you’re a servant.

It means that if you’re sitting on the bus, people will solicit you to come to their house and clean for the going rate of 7,000 L.L./hour (a little less than $5).

It means that if you’re walking with your white friend, and she’s carrying her bag or her baby or her groceries, you will get yelled at for not doing your job.

It means if you’re at a restaurant with non-black people, the wait staff will never ask for your order or expect you to pay.

It means people will ask you, “Are you Sri Lankan or Sudanese?”, and when you answer “American” in a perfect native-speaker American accent (because you don't speak any other language), people will ask, “But are you Sri Lankan or Sudanese?”

It means you are free game for men to grab and touch you.

It means you will be called ugly and “slave” to your face. (Actually this requires an explanatory note. The word “3bd” literally means slave or servant in Arabic. The common name 3bdallah means “Servant of God”.  Arabs use this word to refer to black people. Instead of saying the color black, “aswad”, from which the country name Sudan comes, people say “servant/slave”.)

If you're coming for a visit, be prepared. It helps to not speak Arabic. It's tiring, frustrating, upsetting, offending to know the things they are shouting/whispering/chiding at you on the street and in the homes of your hosts.

Frederick Douglass & Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon

            My eighth-grade students at the American Community School in Beirut, Lebanon walked in to find a question on the board.  This was the routine.  They opened their journals and started to write their response to, “How does slavery dehumanize?” When they shared their responses, they started with,

“The masters treated them like animals.”

“They would beat them for no reason.”

“They would take the women and rape them.”

“They would separate them from their family members.”  

Then I read to them the passage about Frederick’s new mistress, Sophia Auld.

She was entirely unlike any other white woman I had ever seen. . . . The meanest slave was put fully at ease in her presence, and none left without feeling better for having seen her. Her face was made of heavenly smiles, and her voice of tranquil music.

But, alas! this kind heart had but a short time to remain such. The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work. That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made all of sweet accord, changed to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon.[1]

The big bully of the class, Danny, raised his hand and said, “Miss, that’s me. Before we had a maid, I was a nice person.  When we first got her, I treated her nicely.  But now, I just boss her around. I throw things on the floor on purpose, and make her pick them up. I have been dehumanized.”

I found that even after a couple of weeks, I, myself, became like my Lebanese friends, considering it normal to ignore a person because she was the domestic help.  Later, I started attending a church in Beirut where a good third of the congregation are foreign workers. It took a while for me to regain my humanity. I'm still in recovery.

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[1] Douglass, Frederick, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Ch. VI, Document maintained at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Douglass/ Autobiography/06.html by the SunSITE Manager. 
Last update 5/14/97. SunSITE Manager: manager@sunsite.berkeley.edu, Accessed on 10/30/2007.