All Olive Oil

There are too many non-culinary uses of olive oil to discuss fully here. However, as a further tribute to this miraculous substance it is worth mentioning just a few of the many other uses for olive oil that have been found through the centuries. Olive oil has been used as an ointment since time immemorial, and its continuing religious use today in anointing the baptized, the ordained and the dying has roots that can be traced all the way back to the earliest books of the Old Testament. Indeed, legend has it that when Adam knew he was close to death, he reminded the Lord of His promise of the Oil of Forgiveness. An angel placed three seeds on his lips and after his burial, these germinated and grew into a cedar, a cypress and an olive tree. Olive oil is still used to light both roadside shrines and remote chapels in Greece and has had a long usage as lamp fuel. (The shape of Aladdin's magic lamp, so familiar from children's picture books, matches the design of oil lamps in widespread use in the Near East at that time.)

Olive oil has a classical pedigree as a hair tonic and a skin balm and is still widely used to make excellent, creamy and very natural soaps. These can even be made at home by boiling up olive oil with resin, caustic soda and water. Olive oil is also used in furniture restoration as a cleansing agent and stain-remover.