Olive Oil and Other Products Packed in Oil

If there is one product that is indispensable to your successfully becoming a Ligurian cook, it is olive oil. Ligurian oil was heavily exported in the early decades of the twentieth century, almost entirely from the port of Oneglia in the city of Imperia. That town has an excellent olive oil museum that you must visit if you are in the area. In former times, much of the olive oil went to Ligurian émigrés and other Italians who had moved to the Americas and Australia. In recent decades, as the descendants of these émigrés adopted eating habits more like those of the countries they lived in, much less Ligurian oil was exported. When olive oil’s great virtues became better appreciated in the 1980s, the demand for top oil boomed and more has been sold abroad. While I am an admirer of oils from Tuscany, Umbria, Lake Garda, and other parts of Italy; France; Spain; Greece; and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, I unabashedly assert that Ligurian olive oil is the best. It is delicate, but with a very forward and fruity flavor. It is good for sautéing, giving its special flavor to sauces and to foods that cook in it, without adding weight or a greasy texture. Ligurian olive oil is also extraordinary because it is a sublime condiment. Whatever you put it on, from boiled potatoes to poached fish to fresh vegetables or stirred into minestrone, Ligurian olive oil will make your food taste exquisite.