Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil

"[Mueller reveals] the brazen fraud in the olive oil industry and [teaches] readers how to sniff out the good stuff." ―Dwight Garner, New York Times

For millennia, fresh olive oil has been one of life’s necessities―not just as food but also as medicine, a beauty aid, and a vital element of religious rituals. But this symbol of purity has become deeply corrupt. A superbly crafted combination of cultural history and food manifesto, Extra Virginity takes us on a journey through the world of olive oil, opening our eyes to olive oil’s rich past as well as to the fierce contemporary struggle between oil fraudsters of the globalized food industry and artisan producers whose oil truly deserves the name "extra virgin."

8 pages of illustrations

Tom Mueller’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, New York Times Magazine, and Atlantic. He is the author of the New York Times best-selling Extra Virginity about food fraud, and Crisis of Conscience on whistleblowers and their enemies.