GIL FOR FISH PACKING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20642, 14 February 1929, Page 15

GIL FOR FISH PACKING.

SPAIN USING NUT PRODUCTS. LONG TRADITION BROKEN. Recently the Spanish Government authorised the importation of oil extracted from earth-nuts for use in the fish-packing industry. Usually Spain does not allow the use of any but olive oil in the. canning of such fish as sardines and tunny, but this year the price has reached go high a figure that a substitute is, for a while, to be permitted, though not for canned food for home consumption. Cuba, one of her best customers, has pointed out, however, that what is not good enough for Spaniards is not good enough for her own people, a point of view ' which complicates matters considerably as far as this particular business is concerned.

The material welfare of Spain is intimately bound up with olive oil. Oil of olives was manufactured even in the middle ages in Seville. Nearly half the world's total output of the oil is supplied by Spain, namely, from 800,000 to 1,000,000 tons per annum, two-thirds of which are produced in the province ot Andalusia. Here a young person’s marriage portion is still counted in a number of olive trees or of “ fanegas ” of the green fruit. In the winter season, bands of labourers from Galicia and Portugal emigrate to the south to earn their livelihood as harvesters. Ilu-'r food consists of a handful or two of olives, bread, and a can full of ail in which they dip their bread and fry their meat;;

Happily the days have gone when the cacique or lord of the land, paying wages, chiefly in oil, plus a pittance of a few reales, provided the cans for pleasuring the oil pressed, with a false bottom with which he cheated them out of their labour. The clubs of village labourers still preserve such cans as relies in certain parts of Andalusia, where repeated riots broke out until a stop was put to the practice.

MODERN PLANTS INCREASE. Although there are still many oldtimo presses, modern plants are springing up everywhere. The delicacy of the finer grades of oil requires perfect cleanliness and the workmen wear white overalls which arc washed and replaced daily. Spain’s flourishing soap industry is the direct outcome of the olive oi'l by-product, obtained from the fruit after the first pressing, the refuse being treated chemically to extract what remains. Spain is the great world producer, but Italy is the distributor. Large quantities of oil are brought:- Up by Italian blenders who brand the oil with well-known names and export it abroad. Italy has her own olive fields, but most of the “ Italian ” oil is of Spanish origin.

To some extent, Ike use of oil has perhaps accounted for Spain’s comparative isolation in Europe. Tltc proverbial oiliness of Spanish dishes has certainly and long before the days of Borrow, earned for the cooks of this country a distinctive reputation. The traveller in Spain off the beaten track will still get plenty of olive oil wherever the excellence of homely cooking is measured by the quantities supplied. But devotion, to the frying pan is become loss and less now that Spain is developing her own "oallields, aud gas ovens bid fair to replace the charcoal fed “ aimfe.” Moreover, everywhere new hotels are coming into being and in the main cities these ca.n compare with the finest of any country.