The Commercialization of Olives

I visited a couple of other stores besides the grocery stores. One was called Sur La Table. It is a kitchen needs store. The other was Olive Emporium Sarasota. At Sur La Table there was a large selection of olive oil, but what really struck me was the amount of products with olives on them. There were some tools for olives as well. There was an olive pitter and a "boat" to hold olives.

Items at Sur La Table with olives on them included a large vase, a tapestry, multiple platters, a spoon rest, a cook book, and napkins. This shows the symbolism that olives hold as an image for food.

At the olive oil emporium there were some infused olive oils with very strange twists like Habanero and Blood Orange. There was also a collection of olive oils from all around the world. They also had a body wash made from 100% olive oil. It seems to be inspired by what athletes did in antiquity by rubbing oil on their bodies and scrapping it off with a strygil. These types of stores show how olives and olive oil have become more than something to cook with. It has evolved to be a household item, while at the same time being a luxury. This is parallel to antiquity because of the different grades of oil and how often people could use it.