What do you eat or serve porras with

[piazzola]

Hang on there mates before you open your mouth I only made references to some recipes I know they exists.

Whether the oil is crap in BA I don't know haven't been there for ten years but then again it is not my point either unless you want to know how to get funding for olive olive groves.of course there is crapy oilve oil in Spain too as a commodity trader I have plenty opportunities to do so. Don't ya get me started on the subject.

Besides I thought to ask the questions to the people in the country where churros originated from I think is not a cardinal sin even dough I am orthodox. LOL!

Edited September 12, 2005 by piazzola (log)

[vserna]

Yes, I guess you're right. Myself, I'm thinking of starting a thread on chop suey in the California forum - going back to the country where it originated from. All very logical.

[Silly Disciple]

Whether the oil is crap in BA I don't know haven't been there for ten years but then again it is not my point either unless you want to know how to get funding for olive olive groves.of course there is crapy oilve oil in Spain too as a commodity trader I have plenty opportunities to do so. Don't ya get me started on the subject.

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No need to get on the defense. If you read my post twice, you'll realize I said "we", implying I am an Argie too.

Moreover, I wasn't comparing the relative quality of the Spanish oil vs. the Argie one, as a matter of fact it is my understanding that several large Spanish oil brands get their olives in Argentina. I would like to think it was more like a humorous post, pointing to the fact the general bad quality of olive oil sold in Argentina, this coming both from my observations and from a reputed source in the local business.

But since we are on the subject, many recipes that call for olive oil in the mediterranean region use butter elsewhere. The reason is obvious, the historical local availability of one product over the other.

[piazzola]

You got a point there Silly Disciple

[vserna]

it is my understanding that several large Spanish oil brands get their olives in Argentina.

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Please tell us more! That would be earth-shattering news!

(Spain is the largest olive oil producer in the world and supplies Italy with a large chunk of the mid-level oil that is bottled there.)

[Silly Disciple]

it is my understanding that several large Spanish oil brands get their olives in Argentina.

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Please tell us more! That would be earth-shattering news!

(Spain is the largest olive oil producer in the world and supplies Italy with a large chunk of the mid-level oil that is bottled there.)

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Maybe my remark wasn't clear enough. Part of the Argie olive production is sold to Spanish companies. Victor, I didn't mean to imply your precious olive oil comes from anywhere else but the proud fields of Spain!

[vserna]

It's not a matter of being 'precious' or not, Disciple (do you really have to be Silly, be it in name alone?) I am not a nationalist. I am personally a fanatic of a southern Italian olive oil called Trapittu. What I meant to say is that total production of olive oil in Argentina is about 15,000 tons a year, while in Spain it's about 800,000 tons...

[Silly Disciple]

It's not a matter of being 'precious' or not, Disciple (do you really have to be Silly, be it in name alone?) I am not a nationalist. I am personally a fanatic of a southern Italian olive oil called Trapittu. What I meant to say is that total production of olive oil in Argentina is about 15,000 tons a year, while in Spain it's about 800,000 tons...

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But of course you are not a nationalist, my dear. Be it as it may, for some reason, economics dictate that someone thought 800k was not enough, and decided to buy some of those 15k as well. Whether they process them, burn them or save them for a rainy day, it's beyond what I know today. And yes, sometimes one needs to be Silly.

[butterfly]

Don't they grow some more unusual varieties of olives in Argentina? I seem to remember reading somewhere that they grow empeltre and other varieties that do better with a little more humidity. Of course these are grown in Spain, as well, but perhaps there is the need to supplement the production of particular varieties--maybe for export to markets outside of Spain. Of course, I'm just speculating...

Victor--do you happen to know what the production of olive oil is in Morocco, just curious as to how it compares.

And to get this back on topic, what would be the preferred variety to use for frying churros? I would choose something "suave," but I've never really figured out which varieties have the best properties for deep frying.

[piazzola]

I was told that the best oil for commercial deep frying is the aceite de orujo or sunflower oil with high oleic component as fryeer should be kept hot around 190 to 220 constant for production runs

[vserna]

it is my understanding that several large Spanish oil brands get their olives in Argentina.

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someone thought 800k was not enough, and decided to buy some of those 15k as well. Whether they process them, burn them or save them for a rainy day, it's beyond what I know.

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Is it only my impression, or there is a significant difference between those two subsequent statements? First one: what the bottles of "several" big Spanish brands contain is actually Argentine olive oil. Second one (after I refuted the first one): Hey, some Argentine olive oil is sold to someone in Spain, and who knows what they did with it...

That's not the same thing at all!

I'll try to make my point more clearly this time. Spain makes huge amounts of olive oil: virgin or blended, of better or worse quality, much of it historically sold to Italy and re-sold as Italian oil. Argentina makes very small amounts. So if a Spanish company buys 500 tons of Argentine oil here or 500 tons of Tunisian oil there, what actually shows up in a bottle will make no difference. It will be a drop in the final blend. To make another analogy: there are two Spanish players in the NBA right now, which is fine, but saying that "the influx of Spanish basketball dominates several NBA basketball teams" would be pretty preposterous, considering that there are 30 teams in the NBA, with 360 players on their active rosters.

(One more point: What no European company would ever get would be olives in Argentina – it's technically and economically impossible to harvest olives in Argentina, ship them across the Atlantic and make oil in Europe with these, by then, stale and oxidized olives. At any rate, what would be sold would be finished oil.)

To make the magnitude of the olive oil productions worldwide clear (including the Moroccan production about which I have been asked), I checked the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) stats, because I had only the 2003 figures. And, lo and behold, in the latest harvesting campaign, 2004-2005, the difference is even greater because Argentina's production sank from 15,000 to 7,000 tons. So Spain's production was 133 times larger than Argentina's...

The 2004-2005 figures:

1. Spain, 933,000 metric tons.

2. Italy, 760,000

3. Greece, 420,000

4. Syria, 177,000

5. Turkey, 145,000

6. Tunisia, 110,000

7. Morocco, 50,000

8. Portugal, 30,000

9. Jordan, 26,000

10. Palestinian territories, 10,000

11. Israel, 9,000

12. Argentina, 7,000

-- Serbia and Montenegro, 7,000

[Silly Disciple]

Please tell us more! That would be earth-shattering news!

(Spain is the largest olive oil producer in the world and supplies Italy with a large chunk of the mid-level oil that is bottled there.)

(do you really have to be Silly, be it in name alone?)

Actually this reads to me more of a "being ironic to the point of making fun of someone's remarks" rathen than a proper refutation, but hey, that's just me.

I will again say (I already said this once) that my previous remarks were inaccurate, and that my original intention was to claim the following, if you think you can live with this statement:

"Despite the fact that Spain produces several times more olives (about 133, I've been told by unrefutable sources) than Argentina, some Spanish firms buy and possibly process part of the Argentinian production, for unkown purposes to me."

[pedro]

Guys, this path leads nowhere and has nothing to do with churros. So, leave it before you start sending each other to the porra.

[vserna]

"being ironic to the point of making fun of someone's remarks" rathen than a proper refutation, but hey, that's just me.

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If you don't want to see a refutation in a refutation, hey, that's fine with me. Me, I've made my point and am thusly satisfied. As I used to say in a Gallic earlier life, "à bon entendeur salut".

[piazzola]

Well if you thought this thread is dead

Well the it isn't!

I just read about a seafood churros and this is in Spain itself from someone who tried it and now is looking for the recipe:)

[Furious Flav-or]

Mmm. Churros. I remember having them and buñuelos with chocolate during Fallas in Valencia.

Since this descended into a bit of a shouting match concening olive oil, let me add something that should amuse all of you.

Here in this part of the US we have been beseiged by a Turkish brand of olive oil that entered the market locally last fall with some excellent prices, so low, in fact, that I bought in bulk. The quality is acceptable, but manzanilla from the first pressing it isn't. In creating a name and marketing their product here, they decided to do what they did in the UK for powdered milk during WWII, to spell it backwards. It was thus sold as "KLIM."

Yes, yes, the oil is called "LIO," and I can just imagine how well it doesn't sell in Miami.

[vserna]

seafood churros

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Yeah, right. Start with a thick béchamel and add some frozen surimi...

Yecchhhh!