WHAT ITALY TAUGHT US
A journey with Chef Raine & Sommelier Mark
03 | OLIVE OIL 🇮🇹
In Italy, olive oil isn’t an afterthought. It’s part of the foundation of the food.
During his two-week immersive cooking course at the Italian Culinary Institute, Chef Raine Sindicich came away with a deeper appreciation for extra virgin olive oil and a better understanding of just how much it can influence a dish.
In Italy, EVOO is used throughout the cooking process, not simply drizzled over a finished plate. And, as with everything else in Italian cooking, the quality of the ingredient matters.
Chef also learned something he hadn’t necessarily expected: the color of olive oil doesn’t tell you whether it’s good.
“It doesn’t have to be bright green to be good.”
What matters more is the character of the oil and that character can vary dramatically depending on where the olives are grown.
Raine noticed significant differences between olive oils from northern and southern Italy. Some of the southern oils he tasted were intensely spicy and peppery, giving them a distinctive character that naturally influences the dishes they’re used in.
That led to another realization: Italian food isn’t one cuisine.
The food changes dramatically from region to region, influenced by climate, geography, agriculture, history and the ingredients available locally. Northern Italian cooking, for example, carries more of the influence of the country’s northern European neighbors, while southern cuisine has its own distinct ingredients, flavors and traditions.
Raine put the scale of those differences into perspective:
“It’s as different as cooking in Texas to cooking in New England, but a smaller country.”
For someone who cooks Italian food on the daily, experiencing those differences firsthand was a reminder of just how much there is to learn.
The lesson wasn’t simply to use olive oil.
It was to understand the ingredient you’re using, where it comes from, what it tastes like, and how its character can shape the food.
That’s the kind of knowledge Raine brought home from Italy.
And that’s what this journey is really about: not just learning recipes, but learning to think about Italian food in a deeper way.