Olive Oil Questions, Options, Favorites

[Fat Guy]

(If you order anything from Teitel Bros., be sure to order some Parmigiano Reggiano as well. They have the best price on three-year Parmigiano Reggiano I've seen anywhere.)

[slkinsey]

Teitel rawks, for sure.

I use Frantoia from oleifici Barbera. It's an unfiltered extra virgin olive oil from Sicily. Strong "olivey" flavor, medium fruitiness and inexpensive enough at around $19/liter to use for everyday cooking yet refined enough to use raw on salads, fish, etc. All the Barbera oils are very good (I quite like their Stupor Mundi and Andria Classico) and reasonably priced.

That said, if I were going to deep fry in extra virgin olive oil, I'd be using something priced more like Edda.

[Chris Amirault]

I'm with Mitch and Brooks: for everyday use I use Goya EV or Whole Foods 365. They're now marketing a wider variety of 365 olive oil; I like the Spanish one a lot.

[fiftydollars]

I like Stonehouse. It has good olive flavor, but very smooth. It's great for salads, cooking, sipping... pesonal lubrication.

I also like Bariani, but I only buy it once in a while at the Farmer's Market and can go months without it. The Bariani has a lot more particulate (less so, it seems, nowadays than it used to) and I usually don't cook with it for this reason.

[Melic]

I use Goya EV for my everyday sauteing, and keep a few different bottles on hand that are higher - end; they're from Italy, Spain, etc.  Here in NYC, there are a number of places that will let you try the oils before you buy them - DiPalo's and Fairway for sure, and a few others, I'm sure.

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I have all kinds of high end stuff, but if I am just dumping for frying or some kind of quick dressing, I use the 365 stuff from Whole Food. It's good, it's cheap, and has the convenient spout thing that keeps me from pouring it all over the stove when I am multitasking.

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The Whole Foods 365 is my #1, for all the reasons you mentioned. I sometimes think I buy it like laundry detergent

The 'high end' stuff goes rancid long before I've even begun to use it up. Trying to keep a few small bottles in the fridge right now, which causes its own set of problems.

[budrichard]

Drive to Tenuta's Italian Grocery store http://www.tenutasdeli.com/tek9.asp in Kenosha Wisconsin. Purchase a case of Colavita in 3l cans. It is top quality Extra Virgin Italian olive oil and is all I use. The oil is very stable and depending on your usage is good for at least a year. If you can't use 4 cases in a year, do a group purchase or one can. When you are there, puruse the other Italian grocery items.-Dick

[moreace01]

Another Goya EV user.

Doesn't Sendiks - or even Pick 'N Save - carry higher end oils? I would think so. Oh how I miss Pick N Save metro market. It's sad when you miss a chain grocery store (if you've ever been to a Chicagoland Jewel, you would understand).

[ray goud]

Whatever extra-virgin Costco or BJ's happens to be selling; it's usually a major brand, and at those low prices ($10 for 3 liters) I can use it for anything striking my fancy.

Ray

[Pat W]

Nobody uses DaVincis?

[Fat Guy]

I use Frantoia from oleifici Barbera.  It's an unfiltered extra virgin olive oil from Sicily.  Strong "olivey" flavor, medium fruitiness and inexpensive enough at around $19/liter to use for everyday cooking yet refined enough to use raw on salads, fish, etc. 

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I picked up a liter (33.8oz) of the Frantoia on Sunday for $15.99 at Fairway in New York City. It's excellent.

[Peter B Wolf]

Teitel rawks, for sure.

I use Frantoia from oleifici Barbera.  It's an unfiltered extra virgin olive oil from Sicily.  Strong "olivey" flavor, medium fruitiness and inexpensive enough at around $19/liter to use for everyday cooking yet refined enough to use raw on salads, fish, etc.  All the Barbera oils are very good (I quite like their Stupor Mundi and Andria Classico) and reasonably priced.

That said, if I were going to deep fry in extra virgin olive oil, I'd be using something priced more like Edda.

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".....inexpensive enough at around $19/liter to use for everyday cooking ....."

which makes it almost $ 72.00 a Gallon - 'inexpensive' ?

I don't think so

[Fat Guy]

It works out to $60.52 a gallon if you buy it where I did, at $15.99 a liter. Whether that's an everyday oil price kind of depends on how much olive oil you use and how much money you have.

For example, I use about a gallon of olive oil a year for cooking and other non-drizzling/dipping uses. I've been buying $19.99/gallon oil rather than $60.52/gallon oil. But really, I'm not sure if $40.53/year is enough of a difference to matter to me, given that the $60.52/gallon oil tastes much better. Then again, for cooking you may not need a better oil -- it's not clear to me that there's much flavor difference; it's something I'd have to test under controlled circumstances. And I get some very expensive olive oils to have for drizzling, dipping and other uncooked uses (though for most salad dressings I actually use the cheap stuff). So, I don't know. I imagine this issue is much more critical for someone with a large family who cooks every day and uses olive oil as the primary cooking fat. When you use 10 gallons of olive oil a year, that $40.53 difference becomes a $405.30 difference. When you have one kid, dine out a lot, cook with a variety of fats and never use olive oil for deep frying, you can afford to define everyday up.

[slkinsey]

...inexpensive enough at around $19/liter to use for everyday cooking...

which makes it almost $ 72.00 a Gallon - 'inexpensive' ?

I don't think so

For decent quality olive oil, absolutely. As I said before, if I were going to be deep-frying in extra virgin olive oil I'd choose a less expensive brand. But for an everyday olive oil, I think this is reasonably priced for what you get. And, to be clear, what you get is an oil that's priced low enough that you don't feel like you're lighting your cigars with hundred dollar bills if you use it to soften garlic and onions for a tomato sauce, and yet has a good enough flavor that you can radically improve that same tomato sauce by drizzling on some raw oil off the heat and can use it to dress a tender green salad. This is something you can't do with, say, Bertoli or Colavita and obtain anywhere near the same quality result

I like the convenience of not having to stock 50 different grades of olive oil and I like having something reasonably high in quality for raw use at family meals when I don't want to break out the expensive Tuscan oil I hand-schlepped back from Italy. Personally, I don't like cooking with an oil I wouldn't be happy to use raw. As for whether using a good quality olive oil makes a difference when you use it as a cooking oil, all I can suggest is that you try it out and see for yourself. I've done side-by-side experiments and concluded that it does make a difference (and an even bigger difference if you use some raw oil at the end). Styles of cooking may make a big difference, of course. A tomato sauce with sausage, dried herbs and loads of garlic is much more likely to obscure differences in oil quality than a simple sauce with softened onion, San Marzano tomatoes and fresh parsley. Then again, if price is the major concern, I have to wonder how much difference one could taste in that first sauce between cheap olive oil and even cheaper vegetable oil. One of the things I especially like about Frantoia Barbera is that it has a big, "olivey" flavor that comes through even when it's used as a cooking oil.

Whether or not seventy bucks a gallon for olive oil is expensive is a matter of perspective. Looking at Steven's example, if I were using so much extra virgin olive oil in family cooking that the difference between Frantoia Barbera and Edda was costing me four hundred bucks a year, I think the difference in flavor would be even more worth the money than if I were only using enough to make a forty dollar difference. I also happen to think it's worth paying five bucks for a kilo of artisinal dry pasta compared to 89 cents a pound for Ronzoni, and the expensive stuff is still remarkably cheap on a per-serving basis.

For what it's worth, we also have to acknowledge that prices that seem reasonable to those of us who live and earn in the greater NYC area are often way higher than people in other areas of the country would find acceptable. This is a city where a half-million dollars for a 600 square foot studio in the right neighborhood is thought of as a bargain. Most likely, the same oil would be priced significantly lower in other cities.

Edited October 2, 2007 by slkinsey (log)

[Catherine Iino]

No, you're wrong on that last conjecture. The same oils are probably more expensive elsewhere, since there's less competition and less volume. One of the peculiarities of NYC economics is that while real estate prices are, well, through the roof, much food seems to be less expensive there than in other markets. Not bushels of potatoes, maybe, but certainly imported olive oil.

[slkinsey]

Yea, I suppose that's true. Lucky us.

Still, 16 bucks for a liter of extra virgin olive oil definitely seems less expensive to someone living in NYC than it does someone living in, e.g., Akron.

[MattJohnson]

Another Goya EV user.

Doesn't Sendiks - or even Pick 'N Save - carry higher end oils? I would think so. Oh how I miss Pick N Save metro market. It's sad when you miss a chain grocery store (if you've ever been to a Chicagoland Jewel, you would understand).

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They do, however I've sampled some of the smaller bottles and have had very hit or miss results. Perhaps I'm running into poor storage/shipping situations. I had hoped to avoid another miss with eGullets help.

And I spend a reasonable amount of time and have been in the Jewels - I feel your pain. I don't get to the metro market much, but every time I've been in there I've been impressed.

[Fat Guy]

Right, my friends who live in the Akron area, and have more money than we do, and have a large, expensive house, and are pretty into food, simply would not spend that much on an everyday oil. As a result, you're just not going to find a great selection of oils in that price range in that area, and what you will find is expensive and sold at low turnover gourmet shops. Then again, our friends from Venice (who are also pretty well off) wouldn't spend that much on an everyday oil. I think it's pretty typical for home cooks in Italy simply not to use extra-virgin olive oil for cooking. Then again the standard for labeling an oil extra-virgin is different over there.

[Raoul Duke]

But we're willing to spend $ 16 and up, for 750 ml of wine that seems to disappear faster than the oil! I suspect oil prices here are similar to NYC for imported products, or cheaper, since we are in a producing area and have 25 - 30 local oils to select from.

[Fat Guy]

Raoul, if you gather a few price examples from your area, it might make an interesting topic for you to post them and ask others to compare. I can find price equivalents in NYC for starters.

Also probably worth its own topic, which I'll start soon, is the question of how much of a difference it makes if you cook with a better olive oil. I did three quick experiments tonight that could help get that conversation started.

[Fat Guy]

Here you go:

Quality of olive oil and its effects in cooking

[freshherbs]

have to admit that the costco storebrand stuff is okay for everyday cooking

[JosephB]

I use Frantoia from oleifici Barbera.  It's an unfiltered extra virgin olive oil from Sicily.  Strong "olivey" flavor, medium fruitiness and inexpensive enough at around $19/liter to use for everyday cooking yet refined enough to use raw on salads, fish, etc. 

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I picked up a liter (33.8oz) of the Frantoia on Sunday for $15.99 at Fairway in New York City. It's excellent.

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When I read that you paid $15.99 for Frantoia at Fairway I was skeptical, but anxious to get in on the bargain. I'm looking at a bottle of M. Barbera & Figli, 1 Liter purchased today for $20.99. I think that's been the price for a while because I noted over the summer that Fresh Direct's price ($19.99) was better. Maybe you bought a different brand. Or maybe there was a one day sale when you went -- unlikely.

[Fat Guy]

Then the stuff is a total ripoff!

I can't say I actually looked at the receipt, so maybe I got misdirected, but this is a gorgeous cell-phone photo of what I saw on the shelf and this is the oil I bought.

[Fat Guy]

Found the receipt. $20.99. I guess those price signs refer to whatever is on the shelf above -- the standard arrangement. Seems I was thrown off by the way the Frantoia sign is basically attached to the wrong price sign.

[slkinsey]

It's worth noting, however, that there is some fluctuation in the price of this, and all oils at Fairway. I don't recall buying it for more than around 20, but have definitely bought it for less in the past.