“According to the legend, upon reaching the age of 930, Adam, who was expelled from paradise together with Eve, felt that he was about to die, prompting him to ask God to forgive him, and thus all of mankind. For this purpose, he sent his son Seth to the Garden of Eden. The angel who guarded the gates of the garden gave him three seeds, from the Tree of Good and Evil (Tree of Knowledge), and told him to put them in his father’s mouth when burying him after his death. Adam died and was buried in the Hebron Valley, near Mount Tabor. From the three seeds that blossomed and took root in Adam’s mouth, three trees, symbolising the Mediterranean climate, sprouted: olive, cedar and cypress…” Referred to as the Immortal Tree or the Tree of Life in Mediterranean legends, bestowing health, the pleasures of the palate and beauty, whether it be through its fruit or its oil, the olive tree has been an indispensable part of humans’ lives since ancient times. Today, the miraculous story of olives and olive oil continues. Artun Ünsal went on the trail of this unique story – that of a tree considered sacred by every religion, and of its extraordinary fruit and oil – across Anatolia, a pivotal stretch of land within the Mediterranean basin, the motherland of the olive tree. Covering each and every aspect of our olives and olive oil, from the most ancient methods to the most recent and advanced technologies allowing for its extraction, and from precise botanical and agricultural considerations to the details of the tree’s current place in economic activities, this book extends our knowledge of the golden liquid as far as the mind can go.
