Olive Oil: A Short, Sharp History Of Power, Flavour and Fakery By David Tsirekas

There’s olive oil and then there’s what David Tsirekas describes here: civilisation bottled.

Before it became the backbone of fine dining, before tasting notes and phenolic counts, olive oil was the silent witness to humanity’s evolution,  from myth to migration, from survival to science. In this story, acclaimed chef and storyteller David Tsirekas takes us on a sharp, flavour-filled journey through time: from ancient presses of Crete to the stainless-steel precision of today’s producers.

It’s a history written in sunlight, limestone, and stubborn pride and one that reminds us why every drop of true extra virgin olive oil carries the weight of culture, chemistry, and soul.

Before I ever held a knife like it belonged in my hand, before I had burns that looked like constellations and the ego scar tissue of a chef in training, I was a swim coach who thought olive oil was a tanning product. The level of culinary sophistication I possessed at that time peaked with the imaginary internal debate, Hawaiian Tropic or first press from my Uncle Zisis in Ano Komi, Kozani? To be clear, I was not actually basting myself like a yiayia preparing Sunday lamb, but the joke speaks for itself. In my head I was one misguided choice away from smelling like a confused kondosouvli trying to get a base tan.

Then in 1997 I stepped into my first kitchen as a full-time cook and accidental partner in a Greek restaurant, and olive oil stopped being a slick accessory and became a universe. Suddenly, it was history, chemistry, pride, identity, and responsibility. Suddenly, I wasn’t just eating my culture, I was interrogating it. I went from rubbing oil on my shoulders (in theory) to realising it ran through our veins as faithfully as myth and migration.

Olive oil is not a condiment, it is a civilisation poured from stone and sun. It began around 6500 years ago in the Levant, where crushed olive pits and pulp in submerged coastal sites tell us people were not eating olives, they were extracting oil. From those first stone basins to Minoan Crete’s industrial-scale presses and storage rooms, olive oil did what coal, petroleum, and electricity would later do elsewhere, it fuelled labour, lit homes, enabled trade, and formed a taxable surplus. Through Classical Greece and Rome, amphorae were stamped like batch codes, and olive oil moved on state contracts, feeding legions and lighting temples. Monasteries kept groves alive through plagues. Ottoman scribes taxed trees with the precision of surgeons.

Fast-forward to Sydney, mid-2000s. A Good Living Tuesday tasting at Simon Johnson. Neil Perry. Nino Zoccali and Me. Still early in my olive-oil education, notebook full of enthusiasm, half-formed opinions, and cultural pride. Australian olive oil was just beginning to stretch into its potential, young and eager, like a vine finding its first trellis. There was talent, energy, technical promise but it had not yet carried the weight of centuries, droughts, invasions, monasteries, and myth.

Meanwhile, in Greece, some olive trees are older than countries and constitutions. Ancient trunks twisted like philosophers’ hands, still fruiting. Trees that have survived empires, plagues, and weddings in the same courtyard. There is a flavour that comes not just from soil, but from time. And time cannot be fast-tracked not even by ambition. Australia eventually found its rhythm; I eventually found mine. Palates evolve. Landscapes mature. And patience like olive oil rewards the ones who wait.

Before we get too deep into the big words and lab-coat energy, a confession. Terms like polyphenolic concentration, oleocanthal, and malaxation can make even me sound like I’m auditioning to host a food-nerd TED Talk in a linen apron. So let's put the cards on the table.

Polyphenols / phenolics, the antioxidants and anti‑inflammatory compounds that make great olive oil peppery, bitter, alive, the reason you cough is because it's working, not because it's off.

Oleocanthal, one of the star phenolics; think of it as olive oil’s natural fire the same compound studied for anti‑inflammatory effects and compared to ibuprofen in peer‑reviewed research. It’s what gives the good stuff that throat‑grabbing “wake up” moment.

Malaxation, gently churning crushed olives so the tiny droplets can meet and merge, essentially a relaxed olive jacuzzi. Short, cool malaxation keeps more flavour and health compounds; long, hot malaxation is like sunbathing with baby oil, you can do it, but you’ll regret it later.

Cultivars, fancy word for olive varieties. Koroneiki, Manaki, Tsounati. Same way wine has Shiraz and Xinomavro, olives have personalities too. Some bring power, some bring perfume, some bring grace.

Why does it matter? Because olive oil is geology, botany, and chemistry you can eat. Limestone vs volcanic soil changes fruit expression. Coastal humidity isn’t the same as mountain dryness. Harvest at dawn tastes different to harvest at midday. Oxygen is the enemy, like leaving your wine open next to that cousin who drinks it like cordial.

Great olive oil isn’t magic, it’s timing, science, dirt, obsession, and absolutely zero chill about oxygen.

But where do you start when the world is drowning in olive oil labels? You start with integrity, soil, process, lineage and obsession.

For me, there were three anchors.

Minos, from Kissamos in Chania, Crete the first oil that showed me seriousness. It arrived in my life thanks to Bill Anton in Marrickville the patron saint of olive oil importers in Australia, long before it was fashionable, long before "extra virgin" became marketing rather than meaning. Bill brought Minos in when most of us were still thinking olive oil was either supermarket Italian or something yiayia brought back in an unlabelled Coke bottle. He was the quiet revolutionary who insisted that quality mattered, that small producers mattered, that Greece had a story to tell on the shelves of Australia. Through him, Minos walked into my kitchen like a stern but loving elder, Koroneiki from Kissamos, soil full of limestone and thyme, fruit hand‑touched by history. Crete has been pressing olives since the Bronze Age, Minoan archives and stone presses say so, phenolic studies back it (Koroneiki regularly ranks among the highest phenolic cultivars in peer‑reviewed analyses). Minos tastes like the island forged it in a wrestling arena and then read you Homer while you coughed politely through the bitterness. It taught me backbone and humility.

Messolonghi Fields, from the lagoon flats of western Greece where salt meets marsh, where Byron fell in love with Hellenic freedom and died trying to defend it. Kleopatra Tzorvantzi and her family opened my palate wider than I expected. Messolonghi didn’t arrive to replace Minos, it arrived to widen the frame. It became a staple at 1821 in Sydney, fitting, because the restaurant name honours the Greek War of Independence, and Messolonghi is one of its most sacred places. The family press has been operating since the 1920s opposite the Garden of Heroes. They understood oxygen control, early harvest, stainless steel and cool malaxation before half the world could pronounce "polyphenol". Peer‑reviewed research backs their approach, Koroneiki and Koutsourelia harvested early show elevated oleocanthal, oleacein, and total phenolics, especially under short, cool malaxation and oxygen‑protection protocols. Their oil tastes like the quiet breeze at dawn over the lagoon, herbaceous, saline, restrained power, a poet‑monk rather than a warrior.

Vendema, the new chapter from groves near Ancient Olympia in the Peloponnese to shelves in Chicago. Founded by Areti Kornelaki (with Takis), Vendema is the modern expression of Hellenic terroir meeting precision science, first‑days‑of‑October harvest, hand‑picked, milled within minutes, two‑phase extraction to preserve phenolics, inert‑gas headspace, darkness, filtration calibrated not to mute flavour. This isn’t nostalgia, it’s engineering married to ancestry. Peer‑reviewed studies show Koroneiki’s highest phenolic expression at early harvest, low malaxation time, and oxygen exclusion, exactly the hill Vendema chooses to die on. In Chicago now, Vendema is my reminder that tradition isn’t about the past, it’s about continuity. It’s the new kid, yes, but also the oldest story. People connected to soil, treating fruit like history, not commodity. Vendema doesn’t sit on my shelves because I’m Greek it sits there because it earns it every single day.

And in Australia, another quiet catalyst: Krystal from The Greek Providore. In 2023 she nudged me back toward Greece from afar, placing bottles in my hands the way a curator places ancient bronzes under museum lights not to impress, but to reveal. Her instinct for sourcing Greek producers who honour soil, chemistry, and ancestry is a gift to the diaspora. In a market saturated with heavy‑hitters, fakes, fast‑fashion oils, and commercial darlings, she bets on truth. She gave me the first whisper of Vendema before Chicago ever saw it and proved again that the future of Greek flavour often arrives through people who love the land as much as the product.

Three oils, three philosophies. For two of them, there are families as spine as much as fruit. Renieris in Kissamos building labs before it was fashionable, Messolonghi’s multi‑generation press keeping faith through a century of wars and winters, Vendema’s modern crew proving that romance and rigour can share the same tank. Crete gives you myth and granite‑backed truth. Messolonghi gives you quiet seawater‑laced grace. The Peloponnese gives you heritage sharpened by technology.

And yes, Australian oil came of age too. Science stepped in where centuries hadn’t yet had time, harvest timing tightened, malaxation windows shortened, and storage got smarter with nitrogen headspace and light exclusion. The punchline is gone, what remains is respect. The country grew roots and a voice.

Where value pools, trouble follows. Greek oil flowed north to be rebadged as Italian luxury, America saw olive oil laundering like a culinary witness protection scheme. Crime doesn’t counterfeit mediocrity, only things worth stealing.

Koroneiki thunder. Tsounati herbal depth. Manaki floral calm. Cultivars as archaeological manuscripts. Modern centrifuges didn’t kill tradition, they armoured it. Two‑phase decanters hold more antioxidants than the old water‑hungry systems. Nitrogen tanks are the new monasteries. Stainless steel is the new amphora. Bitterness is still truth.

Olive oil fights fraud, superstition, influencer mythology, and the tyranny of marketing terms like "first cold pressing" slapped on bottles that have never seen a press. Adoption schemes now let you “sponsor” a named tree in Greek groves, a charming reminder that oil is personal, seasonal, and rooted in actual families, but the test of quality still lives in the lab and the mouth, harvest date, cultivar, phenolic count, sensory clarity, storage discipline.

So if a drop hits your throat and makes you cough, don’t apologise. That is civilisation clearing its throat and perhaps a very old tree speaking, the kind that still fruits in Crete after centuries, reminding us that some flavours are authored by time as much as by humans. A reminder that flavour is history, science, rebellion, genetics, soil, sweat, and stubborn human pride poured in green gold. A taste of what happens when we refuse to let time erase wisdom, and when we have the audacity to keep learning.

And please, spare me the Instagram mythology and marketing of the ‘blue zones’ as if there’s a single postcode where immortality is handed out with the pension card. Olive oil isn’t magic fairy serum blessed by centenarians doing tai chi in linen pants. It is geology and agriculture over millennia, rock and climate and bitter fruit, hands that have worked trees longer than modern diets have existed. Longevity isn’t a hashtag, it’s soil, labour, fermentation of knowledge, and a daily relationship with real food passed down through DNA and dinner tables. The olive tree didn’t learn patience from influencers; we learned it from the olive tree.

By David Tsirekas

Olive oil is not a trend. It is a truth, liquid history that outlives kings, empires, and algorithms.From the sacred groves of Crete to the family presses of Messolonghi, from Vendema’s phenolic-rich harvests in Ancient Olympia to the modern shelves of The Greek Providore, this is not just food. It’s the story of who we are, and how we choose to honour what the earth gives us.

So, the next time that golden drop hits your tongue and you feel that peppery sting, smile.

That’s not just olive oil.

That’s 6,500 years of human endurance, innovation, and love poured straight from the stone and sun of Greece.