Bloody Good: Blood Orange Olive Oil Brownies

By Anna Abatsoglou

In honor of this spooky time of the year, a recipe involving blood is required.

This recipe is delicious, but it’s not really my recipe, and that’s where the “trick” comes in with my treat (you get both). The trick is I used boxed brownie mix. But not any old version of add-oil-and-egg-to-the-powdered mix. I used San Francisco’s own, Ghiradelli dark chocolate mix, which does not dissappoint when it comes to achieving a deep dark chocolate flavor without being masked with ridiculous amounts of sugar. Blood orange, or orange olive oil can be purchased at your local olive oil shop or probably even some fancy Whole Foods store. I picked up my bottle from We Olive in Belmont Shores where I’ve done
many an olive oil tasting with the amazing owners, Debby and Phil.

The combination of dark chocolate and sweet-mellow citrus in a moist brownie is alluring and delicious. Blood orange is special because it has less of a stringent flavor and more of a sweet orange with a slight raspberry/strawberry note. I paired the brownies with homemade macerated strawberry blood orange olive oil ice cream and the combination was sensational per my guests “orgasmic” compliments.

So much for scaring them with blood!

Blood Orange Dark Chocolate Brownies

1 box  brownie mix
1 egg
1/3 cup of LOLIV orange olive oil
1/3 cup water
Follow direction on the back of the box!

Tunisia Eyes China for Share of Emerging Olive Oil Market

By Tom Baker | Reporting from Buenos Aires

In early December 2010, a number of representatives from the Chinese media visited Tunisia. The Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries stated that this was part of a promotional campaign to raise awareness of Tunisian olive oil for the Chinese market. The visit coincided with Tunisia’s picking season and Chinese delegates were invited to witness the production process first hand, to learn more about the varieties Tunisia has to offer, and to experience tasting its olive oils.

Early reports suggest that the visit was a success. In a statement published by Tunisian news agency TAP, the Chinese delegation is said to have been
impressed both by Tunisia’s progress in production methods and in the quality
of the olive oil.

This move comes as part of an overarching strategy to elevate the position of Tunisian olive oil on the world stage. Tunisia is one of the world’s leading producers of olive oil, but historically a large percentage has been sold in bulk to producers based in other countries. BusinessNews.com.tn notes that in the first ten months of 2010, Tunisia exported 100,000 tons of olive oil while only 7,500 tons of this was packaged.  Most believe the key to the future success of the Tunisian oil industry will be to close this gap and to focus on the quality rather than quantity of the olive oil on offer.

This will be an important consideration for the coming year, particularly as the production of Tunisian olive oil in 2010/2011 is estimated to be between 110 and 120 thousand tons, down from 160 thousand tons last year. In order to combat losses, the Tunisian industry plans to draw on reserves from the 2008/2009 season. The country is estimated to have 25 thousand tons in stocks, which will then be used to raise exports for the current season to roughly 150 thousand tons.

Tunisian producers will be pleased that the Chinese media recognized the quality of its olive oil, as this is one of the key areas in which it can hope to stand out above its Spanish and Italian competitors.

Earlier last year, Lemia Thabet, of the Tunisia Technical Packaging Centre, a company working on the branding and packaging of Tunisian olive oil, told the BBC:

“We face a big hurdle because of the grip Italy has on the market, but we can say that our bottled oil is 100% Tunisian and that counts for a lot in speciality shops. This is something Italy cannot always guarantee.”

Tunisia also faces hurdles with regard to the packaging of its products. As of 2010, the majority of its bottles and stoppers were being purchased directly from Italy, adding further to the cost of production. Production issues aside, emphasis on authenticity and on its long history in the olive oil industry may hold the key to raising Tunisia’s status against competing producers.

Tunisia has an excellent product on its hands and if managed correctly industry experts say it stands a very good chance of competing in emerging markets.

Inhibitory effect of various Tunisian olive oils on chemical mediator release and cytokine production by basophilic cells

Tunisian olive oils have been traditionally used as a medicinal food for chronic inflammation. To investigate the antiallergic effect of virgin olive oil samples from five principal olive varieties grown in various regions of Tunisia, we used the type I allergy reaction model using rat basophilic leukemia (RBL-2H3) cells and different dilutions of olive oil samples to determine β-hexosaminidase release inhibition at two different response stages. Results showed that the Sayali olive oil significantly inhibited β-hexosaminidase release by the IgE antibody-sensitized, BSA antigen-stimulated RBL-2H3 cells at the antibody-antigen binding stage. The result of our experiment shows that the anti-allergic effect of olive oil at this binding stage may be dependent on their flavone content. The Zarrazi olive oil significantly inhibited β-hexosaminidase release at the antigen-receptor binding stage. Moreover, we investigated the effect of olive oil samples on histamine release and production of cytokines by activated human basophilic (KU812) cells. Different dilutions of Sayali olive oil dose-dependently inhibited the production of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-4 (IL-4), and different dilutions of Zarrazi olive oil dose-dependently inhibited histamine release and IL-4 production by calcium ionophore A23187 plus phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA)-stimulated KU812 cells.
authors : :P. Yamada^a, M. Zarrouk^b, K. Kawasaki^c and H. Isoda^a

^aAlliance for Research on North Africa (ARENA), Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, Japan

^bLaboratoire Caractérisation et Qualité de l’Huile d’Olive, Centre de Biotechnologie, Technopole de Borj Cedria, BP 95, 2050 Hammam-Lif, Tunisia

^cInstitute for Biological Resources and Functions, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan