Olive oil is a fat obtained from the olive (the fruit of Olea europaea; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. The oil is produced by grinding whole olives and extracting the oil by mechanical or chemical means. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps. Olive oil is used throughout the world, but especially in the Mediterranean countries.
Read more about Olive Oil: History, Varieties, Production and Consumption, Regulation, Global Consumption, Extraction, Constituents, Nutrition, Uses
Famous quotes containing the words olive and/or oil:
“Even when seen from near, the olive shows
A hue of far away. Perhaps for this
The dove brought olive back, a tree which grows
Unearthly pale, which ever dims and dries,
And whose great thirst, exceeding all excess,
Teaches the South it is not paradise.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
“I bade, because the wick and oil are spent
And frozen are the channels of the blood....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)