Olive oil was revered and cherished by the ancients. But its distinctive peppery taste is really a modern invention
Next time you dip a piece of bread into a good olive oil, savour it for a moment, and seek that peppery flavour on the back of your tongue. It’s a flavour that conveys the presence of healthy polyphenols, and that pepperiness is a celebrated protagonist of the Mediterranean lifestyle. Today, it signifies authenticity and a connection to ancient traditions. But that very pepperiness tastes much like the advent of industrial capitalism and the creation of modern power relations in the Mediterranean world. It tastes like the growing network of global shipping routes, and the increasing rotational speed of well-lubricated industrial machinery. It’s a flavour that announced the dawn of a new world, the flavour of mechanisation.
