Valamar Blog

If you were asked a question on a game show “What tree is frequently mentioned in the Bible, works of ancient Egyptian civilization and Greek mythology?” the answer would be only one. It is olive of course, a tree celebrated in a title song of this post, a tree which has been a compulsory element of nutrition on the tables around the Mediterranean.

Olive is one of the oldest food products, tree known to man for more than five thousand years, and it is believed that it originates from Crete. It spread very quickly to all directions; towards Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, Palestine…Today, its fruit is used as oil as well as food supplement, for frying, food seasoning and medical purposes.
In the past it was used for holy rites, as lamp fuel, for kings’ massages, as means of payment, for oiling babies and dying people and for diamante polishing.

Istria is the territory furthest up north where olives grow well. There are many interesting tales, legends and myths in connection with the olive. Istrian olive oil has its own long historic path, and when it comes to the very beginning of olive growing in these territories, it should be mentioned that in the days of the Roman Empire, olive oil of greatest quality was made in Istria. This was the equivalent of today’s extra virgin oil “Oleum ex albis olivis”. Production of this oil was supervised by the emperor himself, and an interesting fact is that all Roman emperors had their own olive-groves in Istria.

It was mentioned in the first Roman cookbook written by Apicius; also Galen, the most renowned doctor in the Roman Empire wrote about it. Still, the most impressionable inscription was made by Martial – Roman writer of epitaphs, who wrote in a moment of fascination with his native Cordoba, that it is “perfect as oil from Istria.” It should be mentioned that there is an olive from that ancient times “alive” on Brijuni, 1650 years old and bearing fruit to this day!