The olive and imaginaries of the Mediterranean

This paper explores how the olive tree and olive oil continue to seep into imaginaries of the Mediterranean. The olive tree, long lived and durable, requires human intervention to be productive: it is emblematic of the Mediterranean region and the longstanding human habitation of it. Long central to the religious imaginaries and practices of the monotheistic tradition and those which preceded it, olive oil has emerged, in recent decades, as the star of The Mediterranean Diet. This paper, inspired by anthropologists who follow the ‘thing’, also follows the advocates, both scientists and chefs, who tout the scientific research which underpins The Mediterranean Diet’s claims, which critics might consider part of contemporary ideologies of ‘healthism’ and ‘nutritionism’. Nonetheless, as I analyze, this diet with its olive oil star, and the forms of sociality which are imagined to be part of it continue to affect the circulations of olive oil, culinary practices, and people from and to the Mediterranean region.