The origin of olive oil can be found in ancient Egypt, and then in Greece. It was Rome, however, that promoted its expansion throughout the Mediterranean, taking advantage of the magnificent imperial logistics. It seems that Nero already liked to use water, olive oil and rose petals for his perfumery needs. In the Roman baths it was customary to anoint oneself with this oil, previously flavoured with wild herbs. Then there was, of course, the question of its culinary consumption. The most appreciated oil, in this sense, was that from Hispania, both in the form of oleum ex albis ulivis (of green olives) as of oleum maturum (of ripe olives), among others.
Given the high imperial veneration for this almost sacred oil, it is not surprising that olive trees abounded in the vicinity of the Via Augusta, for example. This authentic Roman highway entered what is now Valencian territory through the town of Sant Joan del Pas, in the municipality of Ulldecona (Tarragona). It then headed south, already in the present province of Castellón, through Traiguera and La Jana towards Sant Mateu. The municipality of La Jana borders the municipality of Canet lo Roig. Both towns share a wide valley between mountains, where the Romans introduced agricultural practices and planted small olive trees. Centuries have passed and those weak cuttings have become today the fabulous and herculean thousand-year-old trees that protect the landscape on the border between Catalonia and the Valencian Community.
In total, there are more than 4,000 catalogued specimens (in Canet lo Roig alone there are more than 1,100 thousand-year-old olive trees) in the regions of Montsià (Tarragona) and Baix Maestrat (Castelló). Most of them belong to the Farga variety of olives. The Farga is a particularly robust variety of olive tree; its trunk produces a particularly thick wood and, in order to balance its weight, the tree projects into the ground with very deep roots. This allows it to withstand the wild and unfriendly blows of the mistral wind, which blows strongly in the region.
The reason why farmers in this area have kept their thousand-year-old olive trees is perhaps not very poetic: the dry land does not allow other trees with urgent water needs. On the other hand, smallholdings have also had their beneficial protectionist effects.
Canet lo Roig, due to its concentration of specimens, is an ideal place to enter the fascinating world of centuries-old olive trees. It is a town of just over 700 inhabitants, prostrate on a mound (it seems that Can or Kan, in Iberian culture, referred to an elevated place). It does not seem that the locals paid much attention to these monsters of wood and dream that punctuated, like formidable accents, their ancestral landscape. This changed at the beginning of this century. Since the promulgation, by the Valencian Courts, of the Law of Monumental Tree Heritage (2006), the thousand-year-old olive trees began to be protected and catalogued. This last task is carried out by the Taula del Sénia Commonwealth. Perhaps some reader has seen the film The olive treeby Icíar Bollaín (2016). It was filmed in Canet lo Roig and other places in Maestrat, with local residents, and explains the sad reality of olive trees sold to individuals or large companies and mercilessly torn from their fertile territory. This practice, at least, has been stopped.
Nowadays, the Canet lo Roig Town Council promotes some very interesting routes through the area to visit the old olive trees. Some of them have a special fame. The one from the Bollaín film, for example, or the one known as the “four-legged olive tree”. This delicate monster won the AEMO award for the best monumental olive tree in Spain in 2016. To be classified as a thousand-year-old olive tree, one of these trees must be at least 1.30 metres high and have a trunk circumference of 3.5 metres. The olive tree in les Quatre Potes has a trunk measuring 5.71 metres and a ground circumference of 10.2 metres. Each of these tree structures has its own uniqueness. The so-called olive cancer, which eats away at them from within, is resolved in Churrigueresque whims and impossible vegetal contortions. That is why many of them are hollow inside or, over the centuries, they draw fickle vanishing points, fickle grimaces and changeable gestures. The result is a pure ghostly pirouette.
The visitor who takes one of these routes will undoubtedly need somewhere to eat afterwards. That place is the restaurant Lo Saraoat the entrance to the town of Canet lo Roig. It is a modest establishment that stands before the Calvario hermitage and requires, for its visit, a similar faith. Within its walls hides Carlos Miralles Vericat, a chef trained in the Disfrutar, El Celler de Can Roca and El Racó de Can Fabes restaurants who can satisfy the desires of the most demanding of diners. His canana rice, calçots grilled and romescu It is majestically serious, but you must not forget to try the delicacies of the area such as partridge pâté, Vinaròs prawns with Benicarló artichokes or the combination of thrush, white snail and freshly picked wild asparagus. And, for dessert, goat’s milk curd.
And, of course, before leaving you can buy oil from ancient olive trees in some of the town’s businesses, such as The CanetàCuriosity, however, leads me to one of the oldest active wineries in the Valencian territory: The Tanker’s Cellarfounded in 1825. Here, under the motto “Wine is the only work of art that can be drunk”, musts such as Paraula (white), Lo roig (red) or Xamba (rosé) are produced. With good oil and good wine, my purpo
se in life (enjoying ephemeral pleasures) is completely satisfied.
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