The Best Olive Oil in the World? This Village Thinks So.
RAMEH, Israel — A pot of mujadara was packed and ready to go, a small jar of olives and some bread alongside it. It was the dead of winter in this Palestinian mountain village in the Galilee, and Abla Hussein, who is now 86, was a child at the time, no more than 7 or 8 years old. She and her family were ready to make the hourlong walk to their olive groves, where they would spend the entire day, every day, during the nearly three-month length of the harvest season.
The olives that grew there were plump with oil, she said: “There was so much oil inside, and the oil was so sweet as it slid down your throat.”
Rameh’s olive oil has long had a reputation for being the best in the country, even the broader region, and it is central to the identity of the village. Fresh out of the press, it is bright liquid gold, its aroma reminiscent of the wild grasses and dandelion leaves that grow around the olive trees. People describe it as ripe and smooth, almost like samneh (ghee, or clarified butter).
While southern Spain and southeastern Italy are now the biggest commercial olive-oil-producing regions in the world, evidence suggests that the land surrounding the Sea of Galilee — where Rameh sits on the slopes of Mount Haidar — was once the world’s most important olive region. Recent research indicates it was the site of the earliest olive cultivation, too, dating back to 5000 B.C.
Today, about 2,000 acres of centuries-old olive trees surround Rameh in every direction — a green sea, the rustle of leaves akin to waves. In newspaper articles, books and even poems, the olives are described as “the best you ever laid eyes on,” and the village itself as “the queen of Palestinian oil.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/dining/best-olive-oil-rameh-israel.html
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