Curious Cook in the New York Times: Olive oil aromas and pungency

In today's Curious Cook column, I write about observing an olive oil competition, and about how one scientist's taste of a peppery oil led to the discovery of a natural version of ibuprofen.

One correction to the column: in the editing an important period got lost, and the result was to make Picual olive oil sound like a pretty miscellaneous collection of aromas. The printed paragraph is:

There were many different green notes pressed from the green fruit: of grass, celery, raw and cooked artichoke, green tea, seaweed. An oil from the Spanish picual variety smelled startlingly of tomato leaf, then green herbs: sage and rosemary and basil and mint and eucalyptus. From riper olives there were fruity and nutty aromas: citrus and almond and even banana.

It should read:

There were many different green notes pressed from the green fruit: of grass, celery, raw and cooked artichoke, green tea, seaweed. An oil from the Spanish picual variety smelled startlingly of tomato leaf. Then there were green herbs: sage and rosemary and basil and mint and eucalyptus. From riper olives there were fruity and nutty aromas: citrus and almond and even banana.

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The Los Angeles International Olive Oil Competition

Beauchamp, G. K. et al. Phytochemistry: ibuprofen-like activity in extra-virgin olive oil. Nature 2005, 437, 45–46.

Smith, A.B. et al. Synthesis and assignment of absolute configuration of (-)-oleocanthal: a potent, naturally occurring non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant agent derived from extra virgin olive oils. Organic Letters 2005, 22, 5075-78.