Of pigs and olives (or cold meats and EVO)

Close your eyes and think fabulous olive oil, cured meats, regional wines and good food. The essence of Italy. This, in a nutshell, is how I spent Tuesday evening.

Frantoio Gentileschi invited a bunch of food lovers and bloggers to present their new brand Salumi del Frantoio, a line of delicatessen meats in which a part of animal fat is substituted with extra virgin olive oil. Less bad fats (saturated fats) and more good fats (monounsaturated fats like oleic acid) equals healthier food with higher nutritional value.

The wines we tasted

After a brief introduction by General Manager Evaristo Rota, the nutritional expert Samantha Biale illustrated these facts and many more as we were served dish after dish of food. Did you know that ham is rich in Vitamin B1, an ‘antistress’ vitamin that helps strengthen the immune system and generate energy? 

Nutritionist Samantha Biale

The great variety of cured meats is an important part of the Italian food tradition and this tradition should not be lost because of our modern-day qualms about consuming foods that are rich in fats. Deli meats are not particularly fat and if the fat is the healthy kind, then what are we worrying about?

The undisputed star of the evening, as an innovative ingredient in the precooked meats we sampled and definitely in its own right, was extra virgin olive oil.

No surprise that the event was hosted at the newly opened Frantoi Celletti Blu. Mr. Celletti, who is a long-time restaurateur, is also a true olive oil lover, connoisseur and taster. He teaches courses, has written a book about olive oil (that he kindly regaled us with) and is passionate enough about the subject to have opened a restaurant dedicated to EVO. When you enter the premises, the first thing you see are two massive, ancient stone olive presses. His menu revolves around olive oil tasting, each dish attentively paired with the just right oil.

Mr. Celletti

Some interesting tidbits?

There are 1628 different varieties of olives and 638 of these cultivars (cultivated varieties) grow in Italy.

All olives start out green and turn black as they ripen, they are not different varieties. So green olives are just picked earlier (and what you use to make olive oil) .

Olive oil is expensive. A cheap bottle of olive oil is never good. A sentence he repeated several times throughout the evening was: "there is no oil in olives. It has to be made". It is not just a matter of picking and pressing. The quality of the oil starts from the olive: the finest, purest olives are hand picked. Pollination and different harvesting times also contribute in raising production costs.

While Mr. Celletti illustrated these facts, we served our first dish of the menu (created by the restaurant in unison with Salumi del Frantoio using their products) paired with fabulous regional oils and wines. He taught us how to warm the oil in small glasses with our hands before tasting it. It clearly contributed enormously to the flavor of the different courses we were served.

How to taste oil

Here is what we ate.

Rustic ham and ricotta mousse paired with Monocultivar Tonda Iblea olive oil from Sicily (sweet, spicy, undertone of tomato and basil). Served with Grechetto brut sparkling white wine from Umbria

Mortadella and black pepper mousse paired with Monocultivar Coratina olive oil (bitter, spicy, undertone of freshly cut grass)

Served with Grechetto brut sparkling white wine from Umbria

Neapolitan pizza with puff pastry, mozzarella and roasted turkey paired with Monocultivar Ortice olive oil from Campania

Served with Grechetto brut sparkling white wine from Umbria

Spinach olive-leaf shaped pasta with roast turkey julienne and pecorino cheese paired with Monocultivar Frantoio from Tuscany. Served with Grechetto brut sparkling white wine from Umbria

Sicilian busiati pasta alla Norma (with eggplant) with roast chicken and dried ricotta cheese paired with Monocultivar Tonda Iblea olive oil from Sicily. Served with Insolia white wine from Sicily

Tagliata of chicken and turkey frankfurters with a gorgonzola cheese cream and parmesan cheese crisps paired with Monocultivar Bosana olive oil from Sardinia. Served with a Montepulciano d'Abbruzzo red wine.

Pork frankfurter in pistachio crust with eggplant mousse and with a cinnamon Nero d'Avola red wine sauce paired with Monocultivar Tonda Iblea olive oil from Sicily. Served with Nero d'Avola red wine from Sicily

Lemon ice cream paired with Monocultivar Bosana olive oil from Sardinia

My favorites, in their utter simplicity, were the appetizers and the dessert. The flavor of the mortadella, ham and oils really stood out yet complemented each other perfectly. The pairing of the olive oil and creamy cold lemon ice cream was refreshing and delicious. I personally prefer my cold meats in salads or sandwiches, but I have to hand it to the chefs behind the recipes that they worked hard to create innovative and unusual pairings (although I would have taken the wrapper off of the toothpicks ...well, actually I would have skipped the toothpicks too).

At the end of the evening food photographer Silvia Luppi taught us a few tricks to make our food look as good as it tastes.

Food photographer Silvia Luppi

So remember:

1) Don’t be afraid to eat good quality delicatessen meats: it has as many calories as a pork chop and nutritional advantages too, especially if it contains EVO!

2) Buy less olive oil if necessary, but spend a little more. Good quality olive oil does not come cheap. Oh, and buy Monocultivar. They are the best.

3) The spicier the better: oil that stings your tongue and the back of your throat is richer in polyphenols. This is good.

It was a very fun evening indeed and extremely well organized, with lots of variety and interesting moments. So thank you Maja, Francesca and Salumi del Frantoio for organizing!

At my table: bloggers Giada and Cecilia