IA #2 – Everyone’s Favorite Appetizer

½ ) Assumption/Dish

Bread and olive oil is one of the most common (and most delicious) appetizers in an Italian restaurant. This is essentially the Italian version of bread and butter at a restaurant, which I honestly don’t care to eat that much. However, for whatever reason unbeknownst to me at the time, I actually enjoy the combination of bread and olive oil on bread. Olive oil also was not something you ate like butter: most of the time, you didn’t just put olive oil on other foods. As for the dish itself, it is incredibly simple, consisting of just bread and olive oil, yet it is filling and tasty, as bread and butter can be considered to be.

Bread and olive oil dipping accompaniment

3) Chemical Analysis

Olive oil and butter are both fats – olive oil obviously coming from a plant and butter typically coming from an animal, usually a cow. What makes the simple combination of fat on bread so delicious? Flavors dissolve well in fat, so the natural fruity flavors from the olive permeate throughout the oil and pair well with the simple flavors and texture of the bread. Olive oil differs from butter in multiple ways, besides their source. Clearly, olive oil is liquid, and it is mainly composed of cis unsaturated fats (about 85% cis unsaturated fats and 15% saturated fats). Cis [unsaturated] fat molecules are unable to ‘stack’ easily, thus the molecules are further apart, creating a liquid fat. In contrast, butter is 50% saturated and 50% unsaturated fats, and usually a solid.

Additionally, due to olive oil being a liquid, the fat is able to seep through the porous bread and suffuse through the bread with a relatively little amount of oil as compared to butter, which is typically applied to bread with a knife and spread. However, since butter does not generally seep into the bed, most people (myself included) end up caking the butter on in order to enjoy the sweet and rich flavor of butter.

4) Cultural Analysis

Olive oil has been used in Italy since before the Roman Empire. Highly valued, olive oil was considered a staple of the diet in the Roman Empire, along with bread, and given out for free to the peasants. Peasants would have almost certainly eaten bread and olive oil, as we still do thousands of years later. The uses of this oil went beyond eating as well. Rancid olive oil, known as lampante, or lamp oil, was used to light lamps at night. Wealthier patrons of Roman baths could have olive oil applied and scraped off before bathing to freshen the skin (evoolution.ca). Olive oil, as well as bread, also gained status as a sacred instrument in with the spread of Christianity through the Roman Empire and the rise of Roman Catholicism. In the Catholic church, oil is used in the anointing of a child or an adult at Baptism, as a sign of being consecrated to the Holy Spirit in Confirmation, and as God giving grace and strength to the ill in the Anointing of the Sick. The oil used in Baptism and the Anointing of the Sick is pure olive oil, whereas the chrism oil used in Confirmation is pure olive oil mixed with balsam oil. (osv.com)

A carbonized loaf of bread from Pompeii. Notice the bread stamp on the bread. This was used by bakers to show the origin of the bread, quality, and state certification. This loaf might’ve been enjoyed with olive oil by a Pompeiian, had Vesuvius not erupted

A man receiving the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. This sacrament can be received many times throughout one’s lifetime. Notice the vial of olive oil the priest is holding to anoint the man.

5) Integration

Even ancient Romans knew what a dynamic combination bread and olive oil are, although for different reasons. While the Romans ate it simply for sustenance, we eat it because it is delicious. Much like how the oil permeates throughout the bread, the combination of oil and bread permeates throughout time, just as the uses of oil did as well.

Works Cited

“Oil in the Ancient World: Ancient Rome.” Welcome to Evoolution!, www.evoolution.ca/_blog/Evoolution/post/oil-in-the-ancient-world-ancient-rome/.

“What Are Holy Oils?” Our Sunday Visitor Catholic Publishing Company, www.osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/Story/TabId/2672/ArtMID/13567/ArticleID/10304/What-Are-Holy-Oils.aspx.