The New York Public Library

Mort Rosenblum

Mort Rosenblum published his book "Olives - Live of a noble fruit" in 1996. It's largely autobiographical, injects all too much politics and really just strings together a long essay on olives with numerous quotations, bland poetry and a few decent recipes. But the portions in first person, as real as they appear to be the dialog seem to be exaggerated. They're just too consistently good to be true to life. For example, he visits a series of olive groves, and olive oil makers. This exchange with Juanito appears in Chapter 5.

"Never measure," he said. "you must never measure. Splash. Pinch. Use your eyes, your instinct. Never spare the oil." What did he think about butter people? "Tontos." he replied. "Fools."
When we got up to leave, finally, I asked Juanito, "Are you sure you never cook anything in butter?"
"Feh," he spat. "Poison."