The olive oil - Antico Camino - Bed and Breakfast nel Salento

The olive oil

Ulivo secolare

The olive oil growing in the peninsula of Salento has got very far beginnings.In the suggestive country landscape of Lecce the gigantic and old olive trees are the real witnesses of this so ancient tradition. Huge, bent, tangled-trunks trees, eaten away by passing time and by the inclemency of the weather, real sculpture of nature which can appeal the most insensitive wayfarer.The Messapians, ancient colonizers of Salento, 2500 years ago, were the first to cultivate and produce olive oil in this land.Such a tradition was continued and improved by Romans, who were able to select 15 species of olive trees and to market the produced oil. After being abandoned for many centuries, because of the many raids carried out by people coming first from the sea then from the inland regions, the countries of Salento saw the arrival of the Basilian monks, nearly in the VIII/IX century, that marked the beginning of the intensive cultivation of olive tree.

Pressa olio, prob. periodo messapico

The olive oil could have several uses:

Body care, treatment of some diseases, soothing weariness, lighting house and, above all, it was used in religious rites.

Still nowadays, in the main Christian Sacraments, oil represents God Spirit. After having been forgotten for decades, today olive oil has been rightly reappraised in nutritional field. One of its value is its high content of Vitamin E which prevents free radicals, responsible for physical aging. This shows us how olive oil is particularly suitable for all those people who take care of their body and of its functions.Olive oil of Salento, the result of new techniques of tilling which aims to obtain a genuine product rich in flavours and smells of its land, is also the ideal ingredient to add in an healthy diet.

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