he oil, product which almost each family produces, always belongs on each table.
It is told that Zeus proposed the other Gods a match and that for most useful gift, he would had offered the city of Athens as price. Poseidon and Athena came as last. The God of the seas had brought a horse, and Athena brought a tree sprout: the olive tree.
Before the selection was made, the Horse, symbol of the war and the olive tree, symbol of the peace, Zeus decided for the olive tree. From this legend, the " sainthood " of the tree originates in heathen time, just as however also in the old and new testament, where the oil is sign of divine blessing.

Certificates of the extraordinary characteristics of this plant are the application of the olive tree and its products, just as the ingenuity of the human being, that it processes. The importance of this tree in the life of the man is underscored by rare and astonishing findings from all epoches and countries, or from descriptions and text-dividing, that come from Homer and the Bible, or from poets and authors from the past and our present.
The olive tree has always achieved the human being valuable services, as medicine, perfume and salve, when lubricating, at the meal and condiments, or also as wood and heat.

The history of the " house-olive tree " has its starts in the 4th Millenium b.C. in the Near East, where one rehearsed with the cultivation of the " wild " olive tree, and from where the spread began against wests of the houseplants.
The Greeks, Phoenicians and Etruscans took on a quite important role in the spread of the olive tree. The development, which advances this tree in the coastal-ruling of the Mediterranean-area most, under Rome, has to guarantee the thought, the consequently won oil for the capitals, the army and the northern provinces.

The work-phases of the extraction of olive-oil are still object of the improvement of the technologies, of course always from men, that dedicate their whole life, also today with love and dedication.
Technologies and other useful operations were already developed before centuries from famous persons, like Archimedes, or from anonymous and skillful mill-possessors, their names have gone lost in the history.

The olive-oil, which is produced in the Salento, is aksed in the whole European continent very much. Every year, hundreds of tons of oil of our zone leave in order to reach the most distant markets.

The extraction of this oil depends on the knowledge of the optimal production-technologies. One can say that the maturity-degree, the harvest-system, and other work-courses influence the quality. The European community has published guidelines and norms, which should protect the olive-oil from copies and low-cost products.

The olive-oil was however also beauty-drink, panaceas for illnesses, light-source and essential component of the food of Greeks and Romans.

It was however also " the liquid gold ", it knows the dark times of the Middle age, and became a precious property, which was only found at the table of the richest, in that time. Later however, two different nutritional-cultures were developed in Italy. Those in the north, under the influence of the northern countries put in animal fat, while the olive-oil has the priority in the south.