OLIVES, OLIVES, EVERYWHERE

Andalusia is mostly magnificent: rich in color, noble customs, a tradition of hospitality and tolerance. It is wildly diverse. Seville, urbane and well watered, is among the world’s most thrilling cities. Almer’a, cut off by miles of rocky desert, has the sleepy air of a backwater Mexican fishing port. Granada and Cordoba are dramatic, rooted deeply in history. Flower-splashed villages climb impossible hills; their church belfries and Arab watchtowers are visible for miles. Isolated farms hide low in the terrain.

And throughout Andalusia, the unifying theme is olives.

Slanting light through the olive trees plays shadow games on Andalusian roads. Young couples escape the parental eye deep in the old groves. Oleaginous references flavor the language. Breakfast eggs are cooked in olive oil. More often, breakfast is only oil and bread. Even in the fancy dark-paneled cafes of Seville, where people belly up to a brass bar for morning coffee, cruets hold sharp, fresh oil to anoint toast.

Olives, in fact, have permeated every Mediterranean culture from prehistory to last week. Aristotle philosophized about them, and Leonardo invented a modern way to press them. Egyptian pharaohs were sealed into pyramids with golden carvings of olives.

Today, there are about 800 million olive trees in the world. China has 20 million, four times as many as France. Small stands grow in Angola, in deepest Africa. They are found on six continents, but 90% of them fringe the Mediterranean.

Italy springs to mind at the mention of olive oil, but Spain has more trees--a lot more, if you deduct the fictitious groves that Italians report in order to collect European Union subsidies--and oil labeled as Italian is often from Spain. In a good year, Spain produces 600,000 tons of oil, up to 11/2 times as much as Italy, the runner-up. By comparison, France might turn out 2,000 tons.

Olives have been the emblem of Spain since the first dispatches from Caesar’s legions. Today they grow everywhere in Spain, covering 5 million acres, from the ancient port of Cadiz to the chilly slopes of Galicia. But the heart of olive country is Andalusia.

Andalusia, Spain’s largest and most populous region, stretches across the southern part of the country, from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, and north to the steppes of Don Quixote’s La Mancha. Phoenicians settled it a thousand years before Christ. The Romans took it from Carthage and made it their rich province of Baetica. The Moors came in 711, leaving behind exotic, crenelated forts after Castillians drove them off nearly eight centuries later.

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It was late fall, just as the olives were turning black, when my friend jeannette and i saw baena. We spotted it long before we reached it, a small white town with a cut-stone skyline perched upon a hilltop, 30 miles southeast of Cordoba. At a small plaza in town, I stopped at the Nunez de Prado olive oil mill.

WE FOUND PACO AND ANDRES NuNEZ BY A CHEERY olive-wood fire in the brick hearth of their mahogany-paneled office. Their family coat of arms hung on a wall among objects dating back to Isabela la Catolica. There was a monster iron safe. A gigantic carved table, littered with fountain pens and gold-stamped ledgers, stood by overstuffed, cracked leather armchairs. Only a muttering fax machine suggested the 1990s.

The Nunez de Prado brothers offer elaborate apologies for everything in their olive pressing process that has changed since the Philistines. There are only a few things to excuse. Instead of hand-powered stone rolling pins, their cone-shaped granite crushers are driven by some late Iron Age machinery. The tower of woven mats, filled with crushed olive paste, is squeezed not by stones hung on a wooden lever but rather by a 1936 hydraulic motor that works so slowly you know it is operating only because of its wheezing cough.

The brothers’ oil bears the treasured shield of Baena, one of four Denominacion de Origen labels recognized in Spain. Their fanatical purism is not the reason. Large local cooperatives also qualify, and they use high-speed systems and computerized digital display control panels that look like the dashboard of the starship Enterprise. It is simply that the Nunez de Prado brothers are passionately, desperately in love with olives and everything about them.

In Spain, where everyone else beats their trees with sticks to harvest the fruit, the Nunez de Prados insist on delicacy. Each season skilled crews from Seville finish picking table olives near home and hurry, some for the 25th year, to the family’s four groves around Baena, in Cordoba province.

Six good harvesters can whack a tree clean in a few minutes. Hand-pickers take 20 minutes, if they work at lightning speed. Skilled fingers slide down a branch, detaching olives with a gentle milking motion. This protects the olives from bruises, which trigger acidity, and it protects the trees.

Each Nunez de Prado label carries an invitation for anyone to visit the mill. They mean it. Good businessmen, they know that a look at their operation tends to turn casual consumers into faithful devotees.

Entertaining, which follows the brothers’ whims, is done in the decantation room, where breakfast fades into the pre-luncheon aperitif, and then high tea follows another round of aperitifs. The wine is Rioja and the sherry is the finest. Salami and cheese mysteriously materialize. The atmosphere is churchlike, and each morning someone puts fresh flowers on the altar, the red-tiled basin containing what they call flor de aceite (flower of the oil). At the slightest prompting, Andres dips in a wineglass for ceremonial sampling.

But the real show is a ride to the trees. A two-lane blacktop threads its way into hills the color of red clay. Tucked back on the far rises, stone farmhouses crumble into ruin. Too many people have moved to towns in order to earn a better living. We crossed the Guadajoz River, and the scenery changed. Lush grass grew among rows of handsome trees, all carefully pruned for uniformity and easy picking.

We found the pickers deep in the grove. None slowed their pace at the bosses’ approach. Hands moved in a blur, detaching olives and dropping them into baskets hung around the waist. Paco introduced me to Carmen, who first came to pick as a young woman. This year, her teenage son had come along to help. Carmen is a two-handed picker; she can strip separate branches as fast as other workers could do a single one.

We lunched at the tacky Hotel Iponuba in Baena, which has one of the finer kitchens in southern Spain. Paco had arranged for a sampling of a half-dozen simple peasant dishes, all with Baena oil. The cook, the Spanish version of a Jewish mother, dished up each portion as if it were to last us until pruning time.

At 5:15 p.m. we roused ourselves from the table, long after we had planned to leave. I wanted to see the groves that were already old when the Romans arrived. “Just one more little paseo.” Paco agreed.

He turned off the highway and wound up a narrow road into the hills of Baena. We were off to Zuheros, a whitewashed relic of the Moorish wars. Ignoring a sign that said, “No entry, residents only,” Paco inched up a paved donkey track past massive carved doors and balconies with wrought-iron grillwork.

Soon we rose above the olive line, where the last few trees struggled to survive among thick pines. Paco’s running commentary melted into reverential silence. We climbed on. Suddenly we stopped. We followed Paco down a footpath to an overlook on a rocky outcrop.

Zuheros was a white patch far below. Baena was a pair of hilltop towers and a blur, barely discernible in the distance. From our perch, Paco showed me his view of olive heaven. We saw the entire valley, hill after hill nestled within a ring of low mountains along the horizons. Trees marched up and down in long, straight rows. The failing light flashed silver in some spots. In others it tinted the groves in shades of pink and peach and cobalt blue.

And every square inch, except for a few ribbons of roadway and the odd clusters of buildings, was planted with olives.

MAKING GOOD OIL IS ONE THING. But Jean-Pierre Vandelle, a friend of the Nunez de Prado brothers who owns El Olivo restaurant in Madrid, has made cooking with it into an art. A superb yet unpretentious French chef, he fell in love with sherry, Spanish oil and Spain. His restaurant by a quiet plaza off the Castellana, Madrid’s main street, is a tribute to all three.

So when Vandelle told us, “Do not miss Casa Juanito in Baeza. You will like the food,” it carried the weight of a papal decree.

Baeza is only 55 miles northeast and one letter different from Baena but it is another world. It lies near ibeda, a labyrinth of medieval lanes still used by donkeys laden with olive branches cut as goat fodder. On the outskirts we saw “Juanito” painted on a small hotel-restaurant. It was not much on the outside. Inside, a vast expanse of white tablecloths was overseen by a band of seasoned waiters. Well into the lunch hour, at 3 p.m., not a chair was empty.

Juanito turned out to be a short, bald dynamo with a satisfied look that can develop into a pleasant leer. Luisa, his wife, seemed a perfect match, although her easy smile was demure. As a light appetizer, they offered something called ropa vieja, which means “old clothes.” It was garbanzos mashed in oil and lightly sauteed onions, diced tomato and a tiny bit of salt. As the name is meant to suggest, it had a simple, familiar Andalusian taste, comforting as a well-worn shirt.

With some lovely Rioja red wine, Juanito talked about olives. “I can’t tell you about all that antioxidant stuff,” he said. “When we get into that at seminars, I tune out. We each have our expertise: ‘Cobbler, stick to your last.’ What I know is taste.” He explained that Baeza’s rocky, well-drained soil and long, dry summers produced small olives that were rich in tasty oil. It was different near Seville, where more moisture meant better table olives. Each region had its own characteristics.

Juanito thought it was best for cooks to stay with one oil they know and like. His came from a small Baeza cooperative that sells only unlabeled five-liter cans. He laughed hard at how clever packagers can make so much money from oil that is not particularly superior.

“The richer the people,” he said, “the dumber they are. This virgin and extra virgin is to confuse. A woman is a virgin or she is not. How can she be extra virgin? What matters is taste.”

He said Spain’s entry into the European Union had improved its oil but not necessarily growers’ earnings. “We are very bad businessmen,” he said. “Eight, nine years ago, the state bought all the oil. It was bad, they paid very cheap. Now competition makes better oil.”

Juanito, robust at 63, claims to consume a quarter liter of oil a day. In the morning, he fries an egg in it. He pours it on his toast with cafe con leche. For dinner, he takes a small round loaf, digs out a hole in it, pours in oil and sprinkles on a little salt.

“Look at us, strong,” he said, giving Luisa a rap on the shoulders. He ticked off their roster of healthy children and grandchildren. “Do you have children?” he asked. He took the negative reply sadly. He turned his attention to Jeannette. “Use more olive oil and you’ll have those children,” he said. It has, he posited, distinct properties as an aphrodisiac.

Lunch was stretching toward three hours. The 1985 Yllera had given way to homemade fruit brandy. Juanito rhapsodized on the joy of cooking. “Never measure,” he said. “You must never measure. Splash. Pinch. Use your eyes, your instinct. Never spare the oil.” What did he think about butter people? “Tontos,” he replied. “Fools.”

When we got up to leave, finally, I asked Juanito, “Are you sure you never cook anything in butter?”

“Feh,” he spat. “Poison.”

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GUIDEBOOK

For the Love of Olives

Telephone numbers and prices: The country code for Spain is 34. All prices are approximate and computed at a rate of 116 pesetas to the dollar. Hotel rates are for a double room for one night. Restaurant prices are for dinner for two, food only.

Getting there: United, USAir, Iberia and Lufthansa airlines have daily flights to Malaga, the airport most convenient to the Andalusia region, from Los Angeles, connecting in either Frankfurt or Madrid. From Malaga, it’s about 80 miles to Baena and 100 to Baeza. Renting a car is recommended.

Where to stay: Parador Condestable Davalos, Plaza de Vazquez de Molina 1, 23400 ibeda, Spain, telephone 53-75-0345, fax 53-74-1259. In a 16th century mansion, with a lovely patio. Rates: $110-$150. Castillo de Santa Catalina Parador of Jaen, 23001 Jaen, Spain, tel. 53-26-4411, fax 57-23-0930. Former castle on a hill overlooking the city of Jaen. Rates: $100-$130.

Where to eat: In Baena: Hotel Iponuba, Nicolas Alcala 9, tel. 57-67-0075. Very basic, just a few tables, but wonderful home-cooked regional dishes; $20. In Baeza: Juanito, Avenida Arca del Agua, tel. 53-74-0040. Classy but not fancy, with swift, attentive waiters. Possibly the finest food in the area; $60. In Madrid: El Olivo, Calle General Gallegos 1, tel. 1-359-1539. Olive oil is the basis for superb meals; $70-$150.

Andalusia’s olive country: Nunez de Prado Agricultura Comunidad de Bienes, 15 Calle Cervantes, 14850 Baena, Cordoba, Spain, tel. 57-67-0141, fax 57-67-0019. The mill is about 40 miles east of Cordoba on Route N432. Daily 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., closed between 2 and 4 p.m. Nunez de Prado olive oil is available in the United States at various specialty stores, including Bristol Farms in South Pasadena and Bay Cities Italian Deli and Bakery in Santa Monica.

For more information: The National Tourist Office of Spain, 8383 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 956, Beverly Hills 90211; (213) 658-7188; fax (213) 658-1061.