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The Delicious History of the Shrub

Pull up a chair boys and girls, it’s time for a tale that starts in the Middle Ages and ends with a modern happily ever after. Once upon a time, medicines were made from scratch by the apothecaries and healers of the time and usually tasted terrible. In order for physicians of old to get their patients to take their medicine, tonics were mixed into cordials—sweet fruit-syrup concentrates that served to preserve fruit in an era that had no refrigeration. Incidentally, just in case you’re curious, during this era, powdered tree bark, crushed herb leaves and roots, quinine, mercury, suet,...

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Dos and Don'ts of Balsamic Vinegar

Those who have indulged in good quality balsamic vinegar know there is nothing else like it in this world. Explosively flavorful. Intense. Richly sweet and complexly tart. Velvety, with subtle elements of figs, molasses, prunes, and caramel.  Yeah. All that in one drop of one of the world’s most sought-after elixirs. Add to that the fact that it’s aged like wine for up to 50 years, and it’s no wonder high-end balsamic vinegar costs and arm and a leg. If you’re going to spend significant money on balsamic vinegar, then you should definitely know how—and how not—to use it. Are...

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Unusual Uses for Olive Oil

What else can you do with olive oil besides use it in and on your food? Anytime we here at Old Town Olive find a new use for olive, we’re pretty happy. We want our favorite fruit in the world to be valuable in everyone’s home for as many reasons as possible. Check out these odd and cool uses for olive oil we found. Around the House Paint removal for skin and hair: Did your paint job turn out to cover you as well as the walls? Rub olive oil into either skin or hair and watch the paint come...

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Cooking with Olive Oil

We’ve all heard the advice about cooking with extra virgin olive oil. It’s a healthy oil with a low smoke point. And we all know that oils—even good oils—corrupt when they hit their smoke point, lose their healthful properties, and can even become dangerous to our bodies. But what exactly is the science behind this advice? What happens to oil when it hits its smoke point? How bad is it, really? And what is a smoke point in terms of ye olde average cooking experience in your home? First…the Science Let’s talk chemistry. Wait…come back! Don’t leave now, it’s just...

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The Origins of Muffuletta (and Recipe)

If you’ve never seen or heard of muffuletta before, we’re here to introduce you and change your life for the better. You know we here at Old Town Olive adore good food. And today our food of choice is this bit of Italian-American deliciousness. It sprang up about a hundred years ago in New Orleans and is now, with very good reason, considered one of America’s modern food classics. The story goes that in 1906, an Italian immigrant named Signor Lupo Salvatore, the owner of a grocery store on Decatur Street in New Orleans, started making the sandwich for the...

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