Ep. 742 Natalia Ravidà | Wine, Food & Travel With Marc Millon

Welcome to wine food and travel. With me, Mark Billen, on Italian wine podcast. Listen in as we journey to some of Italy's most beautiful places in the company of those who know them best. The families who grow grapes and make fabulous wines. Through their stories, we all learn not just about their wines, but also about their ways of life, the local and regional foods and specialities that pair naturally with their wines. And the most beautiful places to visit. We have a wonderful journey of discovery ahead of us, and I hope you will join me. Welcome to wine, food, and travel. With me, Mark Millen, on Italian wine podcast. Today, we travel to Western Sicily to meet Natalia Ravida, food writer, journalist, and producer of award winning, single estate, extra virgin olive oil. Thank you for being my guest today, Natalia. How are you today? Is the sun shining? Well, actually, there was so much wind, throughout the night that, I could hardly sleep. I live by the sea, so it was quite a strong gale. But it has been raining non stop, this autumn in Sicily. And this has, somehow affected the harvest in a in a very odd way because usually we wait for rains during the harvest time in autumn. But this year, it started raining, say mid October after a very, very hot summer. And so at first, we were quite pleased to have that amount of rain But now it has seriously had a serious impact on the harvest because we had problems picking. We've been picking, like, two days out of seven. So we olipress is still open today on tenth of December when we usually close, pressing around the third week of November. Wow. I'm sorry to hear that. It was raining when I saw you in Palermo in in October. So, I'm sorry to hear this has been ongoing. We've had some funny weather here too. I've just been battling the hatches down because we're on our title estuary. So it's a strange time. Now, Natalia used to live in London where you were you had a successful career as a as a food writer, a journalist, and then you took the decision to return to your family home in near Memphis to begin to work with the state that's been in your family for, for generations. Can you tell us a little bit about your story? Well, actually, as you said, I, I worked as a journalist and And, you know, being a journalist, you read everything you can possibly read to look for new stories and, and one day I came across, a story of this, gentleman farmer who has started bringing back to the UK tins of this amazing juice of olives that taste tasted green and grassy. And everybody was picking it up, you know, like the top stores, like Harvey Nichols, the conron shop and selfridges, and wondering discovering this amazing product that was real extra virgin olive oil. I had been doing the same thing on sort of family, home level by always bringing bottles of freshly pressed olive oils. Back with me to the UK and having my friends over for the simplest of things, warm bread, the bit of sea salt, an extra virgin olive oil. I think that's the most delicious way of tasting olive oil. Or when olive oil is green and fresh and and really a state produced quality, it's almost like drinking a good glass of wine. It has its own personality. It has varieties that express, you know, their own character in a taste of flavor and aromas. And really the UK was discovering all this back in, in the late eighties and very early nineties. And as I read the story of Charles Carey, who is our, current, imp still our importer in the UK today, we've, been celebrating thirty years of work together. I decided to bring him a bottle of our olive oil It took me a long time to convince my father who was, very strict about everything that was quality. And my father said, olive oils are Rolly Tusker, necessarily does not have a market for olive oils. How can you bring that message across, you know? And then he got quite involved in the project and and thought, oh, well, we can we produce a good quality oil because we have a hundred year old olive trees at the farm, that produce a wonderful, grassy, slightly peppery, with a tiny bit of, of bitterness, you know, that those are the elements of a good quality oil. And so he said, well, actually, we can do it. Let's try. Let's give it a try. So he conceived this, dark green bottle that is still, the ravid iconic bottle with a label very, very classical to try and convey to the public that we were producers in Sicily, which at the time did not have a very good reputation back in the nineties to produce a quality product that could actually find a place on on the shelves. So I I brought a bottle to Charles Carey and his wife's Psycho, and, they tasted it, and they were silent for a very long you know, five or maybe just two or three minutes, but it seemed forever. So I was really worried and I thought, oh, maybe, you know, olive oil is a delicate product and it goes off very easily. And I thought something had gone wrong with the with the sample. I brought. And then they sort of opened their eyes and they said, oh, Natalia, we've never tasted a noy like this. It's so grassy. It it just melts of sea and, freshly pressed olives. And because sicilian olive oils are typically very grassy oils. Our oil is actually quite delicate. It's not an intense fruit is a medium fruity oil, but it has a quite a, a lot of complexities because it's produced out of a natural blend of the of three sicilian olive varieties that are typical of Western Sicily and that we find in our farm. They are bianco rila, cercola, and they mix together in a way that is never the same every year. This is a bit like, you know, Chateau wines. I always make a reference to French wines because they have their own classifications, and and the wine is never exactly the same year after year. So because of climate change and, you know, very sometimes very hot summers, we've had, loss of crops. In the last five or six years, it's been the oil has never been exactly the same. And it has happened that some years we've had a higher production of which is the olive that produces the base of the oil, which is very green, grassy, but a very delicate olive. Some years, we've had a bigger impact of the chiller swallow, which produces a full bodied oil, a bit more like the tuscan fernthale. And these are slight changes. I mean, probably the consumer unless the consumer is a trained olive oil taster would not be able to detect. But, you know, when I taste my little forty tanks of oil at the press, I notice I I I realized there's a slight difference in every single batch that I taste. So it's very much like wine then with the different grape varieties, the different olive varieties are what come together to produce your signature blend even though we have these annual variations. Yes. Entirely. And what I think, today, at first, I I was myself shocked that the oil would not have the exact same flavor and taste profile. But then I realized that in fact we have, an extraction technique that is quite, representative of of the Ravida brand, which produces a very clean oil, very balanced not greasy and, and very fresh in the palate with a grassy notes. And, yes, a very harmonious in its aftertaste with a long peppery aftertaste, and that's what we're mostly known for and what, you know, our customers enjoy and, when they use rebula extra virgin olive oil. Yes. It's a wonderful oil. And I've seen that press in action during the season, and it's one of the most amazing sites to see the hollows going in and, the, the crushing and the pressing, and then that separation of the olive water from the oil, and that drizzle of new oil emerging and that new oil to me, and I'm sure to you and all all of our lovers, is a really special moment to the year, especially as the first taste of the new wine. What's so special? About your new oil because it is a very special moment every year. Well, it is a moment that we wait for and look forward to, for, you know, eleven months a year because as oil, really pours out of the separator, it is very green. It's really like a freshly pressed olive. It's green. It's grassy. And we love It's peppery. It catches your throat. It's so peppery. It is peppery. But again, a pepperiness, has to be pleasant on the back of your throat, but not scratch your throat. Mhmm. So it has to develop really like a spiciness. And one of the characteristics, for example, of our olive oil that we are very proud of is a long lasting pepper in the back of your mouth and your throat. And then, you know, there's nothing better. That's why we always We've always sold sea salt alongside our oil because the sea salt just lifts up the oil and opens up all those natural flavors and fragrance that are in the fresh in oil. This is a sea salt from Thrapani. From the salt pans, yes, of Western Sicily, between Marcel and Thrapani. Where sea salt has been produced since at least the time of the finishings. Probably. Yes. Now, Natalia, you've You take your oils around the world, and you're also an ambassador for Sicily and for sicilian food. Taught people about how to use olive oil and, in particular with sicilian foods, can we talk a bit about the uses of olive oil and how best to enjoy it when it's a special single estate oil? Let's say that olive oils is a binder of flavors, and it is at the base of Mediterranean and sicilian cooking. We season, but also I should say we start cooking. Everything with quality extra virgin olive oil. And the quality extra virgin olive oil will contribute to the final result of our dishes. I can taste if there is a rancid or a cheap extra virgin used in anything that I eat, and it does give an off flavor and taste to food. So quality olive oil is really essential for cooking. It's essential to start, you know, the two or three tablespoons of olive oil of fat or grease that you use when you start cooking some vegetables, sauteing some onion, or that you add to a soup are key. To the final taste and flavor of food. And that's why Mediterranean food is actually quite simple and not very elaborate. Most of my, you know, daily diet because I'm always on a diet these days. I, are just boiled vegetables, then seasoned with sea salt, an extra virgin olive oil that are turned into a soup. And, last week, we had together the, dry broad bean soup, for example, if you remember. The dried broad beans are just soaked in water and then boiled with just a chopped onion. Maybe traditionally we add some wild fennel shoots and some sea salt. And then it stopped with extra virgin olive oil. This is a a traditional, farmer's lunch, we call it, that farmers used to take out to, you know, to the fields in winter because it's very nut nutritious. And, and it's one of the best ways to taste, for example, new season, extra virgin olive oil. Actually, I I had a chance to taste that with you. You made that for us when we visited, recently, and it was so good, so simple, quite thick, almost like a not a soup, almost a solid. The the broad beans were quite thick, but with that drizzle of the new oil, it was simply exquisite, so simple and so good. So I think that when you have a good olive oil, you don't have to look, make anything elaborate. But you can go for I just pour it on everything. I pour it on my when I lived in London, I used to make myself, smoked salmon sandwiches with avocado, a bit of salad leaves and extra virgin olive oil. You know, or cook your fried eggs with extra virgin olive oil and sea salt. They are just absolutely delicious. You then dip your bread in the oil and I think simplicity, can really come to life in your kitchen when you have a quality olive oil. And when I say quality is not only Ravita olive oil. I'm talking about discovering the world of quality, extra virgins. A state bottled, a single estate rather than, you know, industrial oils because that is the difference. And it's just like the world of wines. You have your table wine, one flavor profile. Then if you go into the Chateau, if you go into the smallest state wines, you start discovering a completely new world. And that is exactly the same with olive oils, different cultivars, different, how do you say, terroir? Yes. Different regions. So the difference between a poullian oil, a sicilian oil, tuscan, or a ligurian oil, all of them have their place and their character just like wines from these places have their own character and personality. Exactly. For example, Apullian oils with their, that is so strong, and it goes well with their burata, with their, it it's it's ideal for their cuisine, and it's just like a a masterpiece of a cultivar, same with, you know, the more delicate varieties from liguria. Each region has their own varieties with very different flavor profiles. And I really invite. We did a lot of work, over the years, you know, when that's how I I why I wrote a cookbook Because during, we had to do a lot of communication at the time back in the nineties to, convince, customers to, invest money in a quality olive oil because, unfortunately, the world of extra virgins it has been there's a lot of confusion there because there are some very, very cheap oils on the shelves. And, and these are the industrial oils that sort of ruin the reputation of quality producers of extra virgin olive oils. So we had to convince the consumer. First of all, that olive oil was a taste a very tasty fat, besides having a very high nutritional values. But also that it had a different price point than what everybody was used to buy at the, you know, at the supermarket. Of course. And I have to say that a lot of work has been done, but I remember doing olive oil tastings in London back in the early nineties And people asking me, I've heard it's very healthy to use extra virgin olive oil, but besides salads, what can I do with it? And I remember, so I said, you eat boiled potatoes. Oh, yes. I eat boiled potatoes every day. Well, just pour plenty of olive oil and sea salt on your boiled potatoes, and you'll see how delicious they can be. Yes. Absolutely. Tell us a little bit about some of the typical sicilian dishes that you write about in seasons of Sicily, your wonderful book. Thank you. Well, again, it's simplicity, everyday cooking. So, one of the most popular recipes has been, the dry broth bean soup. The egg cooked simmered. I I have to say. Oh my. Simmered in extra virgin olive oil. But then, you know, there are other dishes. Like, we eat a lot of wild green vegetables that we pick in the olive groves. They're simply boiled. But when you pour some freshly pressed or even olive oil during the rest of the season, but if you just season them with olive oil, they can be so tasty or so tade. So the book has it's out of print now, unfortunately, it's gone through two reprints, but there are traditional sicilian dishes from, you know, a timballo of pasta colesade, a lot of vegetables because you Caponata, for example. We do the caponata. Again, we love to use extra virgin olive oil when frying eggplant because the eggplant takes in the flavor of a good quality oil. And if the oil is not good quality, it will take up. Take up the off flavor. Of course. So for us, you know, parmigiana de mele and san, everything is deep fried in extra virgin olive oil. I'm often asked, but do you use extra virgin olive oil for frying? Yes. I do. What I do is we use previous season oil so that it's not so grassy. We reserve that for, you know, for cooking or for seasoning, but extra virgin olive oil because of its, high level of antioxidants can be an high smoking point can be used over and over again for frying. You can filter it and then add top up with fresh olive oil. I think it can be used up to twenty or thirty times until. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Of course, you don't want it to smoke, but you don't want any fat to smoke to go to smoking point. I know that you've, you've paused to join me today. Right at the end of, the harvest, it's late for you to still be pressing olives, but you're also making a very special product right now that I've enjoyed greatly. The lemon trees that grow amidst the olive trees in your state are also picked to use to make this special lemon oil. Tell us about this because that has great uses in in in sicilian food, in seasoning fish, and in many other ways. Yeah. We love the lemon oil. My father was really against the idea. And although he gave me all the tips to produce it, I think he never tasted it. It actually, won a great taster awards in the UK last year, but the idea is that a quality producer will not ruin their olive oil production by adding lemons or sometimes some producers add aromas, lemon aromas. What we do is, we press bianco lilla olives with lemons from the farm at the end of the harvest. In fact, we are going to produce just that now in mid December. And, and the oil, we produce both a lemon oil and a mandarin olive oil. And they're both really amazing. They will with a spoonful of, parmesan, they will make just a beautiful pasta with, parmesan, either parmesan and lemon oil or parmesan and mandarin oil. Demandor in oil goes beautifully on tomatoes, mozzarella, The mandarin has a a wonderful way of combining with its basic ingredients. It goes well, like, on duck, on lamb. Oh, wonderful. And whilst the lemon is easier in a way to use, because of the association of lemon. It goes beautifully on fish, but also on a tomato mozzarella. And, they have two products that have been very, very successful. And I'm glad you enjoy them. Oh, I do. And I'm waiting for them to arrive, because I think they're one of the really special tastes. I I'm I've seen it actually being produced with you where the lemons are just going along with the olives and crushed completely whole to flavor the oil naturally. Yeah. Yeah. They're we press olives and lemons together. Yes. That's wonderful. Well, it's been fabulous to talk to you about food and your wonderful oils. I know that you actually travel around the world, spreading the message of good single estate olive oils, the ravido oils, of course, and also sicilian food. Have you resumed your travels? Well, not really. I briefly came to London in September and spent my time filling up, locator forms and doing, how do you say, tests, COVID tests? Yes. It's a very strange time still. It is a strange time. I'm not planning any travel for work for the time being, but really misdoing my cooking classes and demos. I love to have that direct contact with my consumer and really learning how, you know, my consumers use extra virgin olive oil around the world. For example, I love going to Japan and seeing, some of, Tokyo stop sushi chefs using our extra virgin olive oil and lemonamander in oils alongside soy sauce. Oh, how interesting. Yeah. Yeah. On their sushies. And the combinations are really amazing and unexpected. So I look forward to, to start traveling again, but it's fine. You know, I've traveled a lot and I actually and quite enjoying the fact that maybe for a while, we can sort of, sit back a little bit and, and think about other things in that hectic life that we used to lead. I hope it doesn't last too long. Yes, sure. No. No. No. I think we're all we all feel the same. There have been some good things that have come out of this enforced time to, to pause and, and, and consider what we're doing. Well, it's been really lovely speaking to you. And I'm delighted as well that you are able to offer to listeners of Italian wine podcast a discount code if they wish to come to your website or those in the UK to the oil merchant. And I think Joy will be putting that up onto the onto the SoundCloud site. The code is, I think, Italian wine podcast. Yes. Yes. We'll be happy to have you join us either on our website or the oil merchants website, who has a fresh supplies because he brings in the oil once a month. So we bottle the oil to order. So that is like an extra guarantee that we give at Ravida for to guarantee freshness. We store the oil in, in stainless steel containers in total absence of oxygen at controlled temperatures. And it's important to I'd like to stress that olive oil is a very delicate product and it should be stored with great care away from heat light and oxygen. And once you buy a bottle of good quality olive oil, I always recommend once you open it, use it. It will add and harmonize your food, everywhere. Don't be scared to use it because a quality olive oil ads does not detract taste and flavor or otherwise use our oil boxes, which have been really conceived to to store the oil in absence of light and oxygen, and that can really keep you going, keeping the freshness of the oil for a really wonderful long period of time. Well, you've given us so much advice on the enjoyment of oil and it is a complicated subject. It's complicated as mine, but it's a wonderful subject and a wonderful product. And, it's been a delight to speak with you today, Natalia. And I wish you all the best for the rest of the harvest, and I look forward to seeing you again in the new year. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for having me on a on a wine podcast, but, I've always thought that wines and olive oil should go hand in hand because if they're properly tasted, the they have the same, sort of approach because it's, again, varieties, terroir, and the methods of productions that are really important and make a difference. Yes. Well, thank you very much, and I'll look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful speaking to you, and thank you so much. Bye bye. Bye. Thank you. Bye bye. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of wine food and travel with me, Mark Millen, on Italian wine podcast. Please remember to like, share, and subscribe right here, or wherever you get your pods. Likewise, you can visit us at Italian wine podcast dot com. Until next time. Hi everybody. Italian wine podcast celebrates its fourth anniversary this year, and we all love the great content they put out every day. 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