Julie Angus - Olive Odyssey: Searching for the Secrets of the Fruit That Seduced the World

The whole Mediterranean... all of it seems to rise in the sour, pungent taste of these black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.
LAWRENCE DURRELL, Prosperos Cell

I CANT DO THIS, I screamed, my voice stolen by the wind before it reached Colin. Our sailboat raced across the water, heeling over like a drunk at an open bar. My stomach churned, and I was hyperventilating. Below, our ten-month-old baby shrieked. He was only 4.5 meters away, but I couldnt do anything. I couldnt leave the tiller until Colin returned from adjusting the boom vang for the mainsail, and even if I could have, going inside that dark, rocking cabin would have made me vomit.

How could Colin be so calm? He was staring at a block and tackle system that wasnt working properly with a perplexed look on his face. He seemed completely oblivious to the ridiculous angle of our boat or the steep waves casting spray over the entire vessel. He probably couldnt even hear Leifs shrieking.

My panic attack seemed to trigger a secondary wave of anxiety. What was wrong with me? The winds were only twenty to twenty-five kilometers per hour. I recalled from my reading just two hours earlier that this was force 4 on the Beaufort scale, an empirical measuring system for wind and sea conditions. Force 4, I struggled to remind myself, is defined as a moderate breeze. A moderate breeze? It felt like a gale. I wanted more than anything to be back on solid ground. I wanted to hold Leif in my arms, to stroke his flaxen hair and soothe him. I wanted to be anywhere but on this boat.

Having solved the boom vang fandangle, Colin returned to the cockpit with a couple of well-placed steps. He glanced at my face and immediately looked alarmed.

Whats the matter?

Leif! Cant you hear him? I could barely speak, and my words came out in great gasping gushes.

Yeah, why dont you go down and calm him? No big deal. Ill turn the boat around and we can head back to the marina. The boat sails beautifully, eh?

I cant, I murmured, flooded with shame. Ill throw up if I go inside.

No problem. Just keep steering, and Ill check in on him.

I nodded gratefully, looking away so that he wouldnt see the tears slipping down my face. But he noticed something was amiss.

Are you all right? he asked, his voice gentle with concern.

No, I sobbed. I cant do this.

Cant do what? If youre having trouble steering, I can...

I cant do the sailing trip, I shouted.

Colin didnt say anything, but he looked surprised. I felt like such a failure. Wed spent an entire year planning this voyage, and just three days ago wed handed over $11,000 cash to buy this boat. Now I was backing out.

Colin loosened the mainsheet, the line holding in the mainsail, and the boat slowed slightly.

Dont worry, he said. Lets head back to the marina and we can talk things over there.

TWO WEEKS earlier, we had left Vancouver Island, our home rented out and our cat in the care of neighbors. We arrived jetlagged in Madrid with a screaming baby and shoehorned our camera gear, boat equipment, clothes, diapers, stroller, books, computer, and life jackets into the diminutive trunk of a rented Fiat Uno. A tangle of freeways marked the start of our life on the road as we drove four hundred kilometers to Valencia, the coastal city where we hoped to buy our sailboat.

It wasnt long before we saw our first olive trees. Silver leaves shimmered in the valleys along the motorway, standing alone or in small groves. They were planted in perfectly straight lines with dry, cracked earth between them. Their solid trunks and thick foliage hinted of life and permanence in an arid land that could support little else.

Spain has more olive trees than any other country and produces three times as much olive oil as its nearest competitor, Italy. In the 201112 season, Spanish growers pressed 1,571 million liters of olive oil, nearly half of the global supply and Spains most fertile year in almost a decade. Spain produces more than twice as much oil as Spaniards use, making it the only European country that makes enough oil for its own consumption. The country also grows nearly a fifth of the worlds table olives, and even though the 201112 harvest was down 14 percent from the previous year, it still produced a staggering 471 million kilograms of olives, enough for every Spaniard to eat 10 kilograms of olives.

Olives are crucial to the Spanish economy. As one of the countrys most important export commodities, olives bring in significant revenues, and the olive industry employs hundreds of thousands of people. There are 413,000 olive farms and almost a thousand olive cooperatives in Spain, as well as olive mills, packing plants, and refineries for inferior olive oil that is unpalatable. Lampante oil, which needs to be refined, makes up about a third of Spains olive oil, and the remainder is split relatively equally between virgin and extra virgin, a ratio that shifts from year to year, depending on growing conditions. Some of the worlds largest olive oil companies are here, including Hojiblanca, which expects to produce 300 million liters of olive oil in 2013, and the Acesur Group, which exports to eighty countries and had revenues of $537 million in 2010. There is also a litany of smaller producers and more than a hundred brands. More than half of Spanish oil is exported; 80 percent of that goes to other EU countries, with Italy purchasing the bulk of it, and the rest goes to Japan, Australia, the United States, China, and other, smaller olive oilconsuming nations.

Spains ascent to olive superpower can be partially attributed to the past policies of some of the greatest civilizations of the Mediterraneanthe Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks, and Arabs. The Spanish term for olive oil, aceite de oliva, reflects this broad influence. Aceite comes from the Arab term for olive juice, al-zat, and oliva is Latin. The Romans adapted oliva from the Greek word elaw, which comes from prehistoric Greece and the Mycenaeans, who chiseled elava on clay tablets in Linear B script.

I was excited to be here, finally embarking on an adventure wed planned for so long. My feeling of well-being was further buoyed by the sight of Leif sleeping peacefully in his car seat, and I felt a glimmer of hope that sailing with Leif would be the pleasurable experience we had dreamed of.

Valencia sits on the coast, tucked into the Costa del Azahar (Orange Blossom Coast). This vibrant university city is Spains third-largest city and is home to a Formula One Grand Prix circuit. It is also a foodies dream, producing not only excellent olive oil and wine but oranges so sweet that an American cultivar was named after the region. Our hotel was next to the City of Arts and Sciences, an architectural marvel of physics-defying curves, twists, and arches that housed art galleries, museums, and an opera house.

The city hummed with countless attractions, but we were here for only one reasonto find a sailboat. Our hunt for the ideal boat had been going on for nearly a year; we had scoured newspapers, magazines, online boat classifieds, and yacht brokerages. There was no shortage of boats for sale, but very few met all of our requirements. Not only did it have to be seaworthy and fit a family of three, but it had to be affordable. We would use the boat for our journey and try to sell it afterward. If we couldnt, we would take a large or complete loss.