One option soon not allowed in the EU is jugs and refillable bottles of olive oil...you know, the stuff on every single restaurant table throughout the continent: "From 1 January 2014, restaurants may only serve olive oil in tamper-proof packaging, labelled to EU standards" [BBC]. I can only think this is a ploy to help the economies of the the PIGS: although the "spectacular surge in demand for olive oil in developed and emerging markets" [OOT] should help too. Oliver (yes, honestly) Bailly the European Commission spokesman said the olive oil regulation would benefit consumers because they are only "making clear that when you want to have olive oil of a certain quality in a restaurant, you get exactly the one you are paying for", what about rip-off wine? What about the 'fresh' bread in an open basket? the meat? the fish? How often does one really get 'exactly the one you are paying for'? Anyway, just like to mention that earlier this year the EU codified marketing standards for olive oil and I am in favour because reading the regulation [PDF] I don't think it's as bad as everyone is making out (no change there then!) and as early readers of Owsblog will know, I like olives...but also I am always pissed off by the obvious dodgy olive oil (I mean restaurant owners saving a few bob, not the multi-billion pound scam) passed off as super-pure cold-pressed extra-virgin.
2 comments:
I agree with you on the codification, it seems to make sense and to have been done with the right intentions. Personally I'd like to see an end to those tomato shaped ketchup dispensers (hate the smell of ketchup anyway) and brown sauce dispensers that always look like a health hazard.
It struck me going through the links how olive oil is very much a symbol of the changing times, similar in a way to all the artisan breads you now see - the staple food of the poor has evolved into something that is now part of conspicuous consumption and just as bread needed leglislation to codify the composition of flour so the humble olive oil now needs it.
haha, yes, those dubious looking globlets of red/brown/black goo packed around the spout of the sauce dispensers, no doubt a myriad multitude of dodgy pathogenic organisms just waiting for the fast track to be able to populate our gastro-intestinal tract.
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