Olive oil-the oldest industry in Catalonia

June 19, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Activities, Cultural tours, History and culture, Wine and food

Olives and olive oil is what brought the Greeks and Romans to the Iberian peninsula some 3,500 yrs ago and it has been a crucial commodity ever since. The south of Spain produces the quantity with thousands of hectares cultivated in the poorest soils where nothing else will survive the extreme weather, but around Lleida in the western part of Catalonia there are also extensive plantations.

The main variety is the arbequina olive which although small in size has one of the lowest levels of acidity and some even go as far as to say it produces “sweet” olive oil in contrast to the more “picante” southern varieties.

Outside the town of Les Borges Blanques, some 35kms from Lleida, just off the main road, is a museum/theme park devoted to explaining the cultivation, processing and selling of olive oil through history.

Outside the gardens are full of huge gnarled olive trees that date back to when the Romans were in the area some 2,000 yrs ago. One amazing tree is said to have been carbon dated as 2,700 yrs old!

The process of extraction got increasingly sophisticated as the presses on display show until today it is a high tech enterprise where the temperature is controlled and the quality has improved beyond belief with the resulting oil giving an organoleptic experience like a good wine.

Now there are hundreds of different oils on the market, some from olives picked early making the oil a green colour to blends of different varieties or organically produced, whichever way with some bread to drizzle on it is still one of the best Mediterranean customs!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from gironaJ

Tags: arbequina, Greeks, Les Borges Blanques, Lleida, Mediterranean, olive oil, olives, Romans

Empuries Greco-Roman ruins

April 13, 2009 by Admin
Filed under History and culture, Services, Tours

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Empuries is only some 30 minutes drive from Girona and is right next to l'Escala on the coast in a beautiful setting of sand dunes and pine trees. This area was first settled by Iberian tribes but it is really with the arrival of the civilizing Greeks in approx 300BC that both building and commerce began. Empurion, as it was known, was connected to many other trading ports around the Mediterranean, all eventually supplying the main markets of Greece and Italy with wine, olive oil, nuts ( almonds and hazelnuts), hides and wheat.
This trade became so important that the Romans decided to take over the whole Iberian peninsula to guarantee their supplies for an expanding empire. The remains we see today show a very sophisticated and prosperous community which enjoyed saunas, cultural entertainment, gymnastics and music which even today we can feel envious of.