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EU to Ban Olive Oil Jugs from Restaurant Tables
Because they don’t have anything else to worry about in Brussels.
If you want ever again to dip your bread into a bowl of olive oil on your table at a restaurant in Europe, or to pour olive oil onto it from a quaint, refillable jug, you’d better hurry up. It’ll be illegal in January 2014:
The small glass jugs filled with green or gold coloured extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe but they will be banned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week.
From next year olive oil “presented at a restaurant table” must be in pre-packaged, factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labelling in line with EU industrial standards.
The use of classic, refillable glass jugs or glazed terracotta dipping bowls and the choice of a restaurateur to buy olive oil from a small artisan producer or family business will be outlawed.
Let’s see. This move will benefit large industrial producers at the expense of small, artisanal olive oil makers, require non-eco-friendly, mass-produced generic packaging, and kill off one more vestige of what remains of European charm.
The decision, which will be automatically adopted by the commission in the next few days, has dismayed many officials who are concerned that a ban crafted to help industry will damage the reputation of the EU at a time of growing hostility to Brussels bureaucrats.
“This is sort of thing that gets the EU a deservedly bad name. I shouldn’t say so but I hope people disobey this ban,” said an official.
“It will seem bonkers that olive oil jugs must go while vinegar bottles or refillable wine jugs can stay.”
Responding to the ban, Martin Callanan MEP, the leader of the European Conservative and Reformist group, asked: “Is it April 1st?”.
“With the euro crisis, a collapse in confidence in the EU, and a faltering economy surely the commission has more important things to worry about than banning refillable olive oil bottles?”
The Telegraph is having none of this:
Published in GeneralThere are bigger reasons to desire renegotiation of our relationship with the EU, but its obsession with olive-oil dipping does add to its aura of authoritarianism. What next? If the EU tries to tell the British how much milk or sugar to put in their tea, we predict a riot.
One of my favorite stalls at the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv — and when I first saw the sign I thought, “We’d better hurry up before all three of these are banned.”
Your concern for European olive-oil affairs is noted. ;p
Seriously though, I can’t think of ONE restaurant that uses them, anyway. I use them at home, primarily for guests, but that’s about it.
The utility of the original bottle cannot be denied. And I feel more sanitary, as I found worms wiggling in a vinegar jug about 10 years ago.
I will amend my statement; I thought of one. But the greasy fingerprints on the bottle turned me off.
Two questions, what are the penilities for breaking the regulations, and how did UKIP vote (did they even have any members on the committee)?
Nigel Farage and Daniel Hannan to heap epic scorn in 3…2…1…
I think someone should do a Deling Poll.
Evidently, the olive oil lobby wields some considerable clout.
How do they expect to enforce this? Nearly every mom and pop restaurant in rural Italy and Greece has a simple jug of olive oil on the table that doesn’t meet these standards (and, usually, some reasonably decent home made table wine).
Well, there is an historical precedent for the British to riot when someone messes with their tea….
Seriously though, I can’t think of ONE restaurant that uses them, anyway. I use them at home, primarily for guests, but that’s about it.
The utility of the original bottle cannot be denied. And I feel more sanitary, as I found worms wiggling in a vinegar jug about 10 years ago. ·1 hour ago
And unelected bureaucrats in Belgium should force the rest of the continent to adopt this practice because…?
Worms in a vinegar jar are already covered by local and/or national sanitation laws. There is absolutely no reason for Brussels to get involved here.
Yes, but these are not my Grandfather’s Brits. Trust me.
This just in. Mayor Bloomberg has jug envy.
Let the Greeks deal with their own olive oil. The Germans can make rules for their own sauerkraut. The Brits for Fish and Chips and the French can regulate cheese for themselves.
The EU can regulate Brussels sprouts.
Big Government = Bigger Problems…..duh!!
Coming soon to a bureaucracy near you! Oh, wait! Already here.
The EU can regulate Brussels sprouts. ·53 minutes ago
But I like Brussel Sprouts, especially when sautéed in olive oil.
You’ve not heard to the thousands and thousands of olive oil poisonings all over Europe? Public health crisis. People are hurting–government must move.
Judith’s story could just as easily run in the Onion, and everyone would have laughed at the irony of making fun of silly and useless regulation and bureaucracy.
Thanks for that!
Note to the UK: get out. Get out while you can, and do whatever you have to do to make it happen. If that means David Cameron’s head on Traitor’s Gate, so be it. Do it before you’re assimilated, Borg-style, into some faceless Brussels superstate.
Being the devil’s advocate here, how old is that olive oil in your jug at the restaurant? Days, weeks, months … years?
Heh. So let me see, what do Italy and Greece have in common? Ah yes, southern Mediterranean countries. Where are EU headquarters? Where is the tension level? The old Northern European versus the Southern European division resurfaces.
The only logical solution is to vote the EU parliament members out of office. Oh, wait.
If you ever had Brussel doubts about the EU.. this is it. And eat your greens, or else.
Being the devil’s advocate here, how old is that olive oil in your jug at the restaurant? Days, weeks, months … years? ·5 hours ago
If it were my restaurant, it would be fresh: because I have the greatest incentive to (1) get customers to come back and (2) to not make them sick. This is not a problem that requires EU regulations to solve.
I also trust that cooks in good restaurants won’t spit in the soup. That too is a “problem” that doesn’t require government intervention.
It’s not that big a deal to get a generic pourer that fits nicely into the bottle and can be discarded along with the bottle and replaced with a new bottle and new pourer.Thats what I do at home. I’m no fan of the EU, but this does not register on the loss of sovereignty scale.
And just when you think it can’t get any more ridiculous in Europe, the National Institute of Health and the University of Alabama invent underwear that detects if you smoke.
Rumor has it that it reports you immediately to Lois Lehrer and the Obamacare supes at Revenue.
Being the devil’s advocate here, how old is that olive oil in your jug at the restaurant? Days, weeks, months … years? ·5 hours ago
If it were my restaurant, it would be fresh: because I have the greatest incentive to (1) get customers to come back and (2) to not make them sick. This is not a problem that requires EU regulations to solve.
I also trust that cooks in good restaurants won’t spit in the soup. That too is a “problem” that doesn’t require government intervention.
Not only that, but when olive oil is in a bowl or an open jug, your own nose tells you whether it’s gone rancid before you pour it all over your food. If the olive oil’s in
not so much.
The utility of the original bottle cannot be denied. And I feel more sanitary, as I found worms wiggling in a vinegar jug about 10 years ago.
For whatever it’s worth, vinegar eels, though unappetizing to most of us in the finished product, are totally harmless, often present during vinegar manufacture (then filtered out later), and may contribute to vinegar’s flavor.