Food
Olive Oil Is Becoming One of the Hottest Ingredients In Asia
From Tokyo to Singapore, the ingredient has gone from rejected to gold medalist.
Source: Garden City Olive
Twenty years ago, when chef Shinobu Namae cooked at the acclaimed Italian restaurant Acqua Pazza in Tokyo, he had trouble selling dishes made with olive oil, one of the cuisine’s featured ingredients. Customers frequently asked him to omit it from their order.
Today, says Namae, “people in Tokyo love olive oil.” At his Michelin three-star L’Effervescence, the chef can now source locally made oil from Souju, a farm in the Kagawa prefecture that once grew Bonsai plants. Because the owners were expert at pruning, Namae says they can control the growth of the olive trees to sustainably “harvest good fruits constantly.”