oil for your bread?

I like bread. No, check that, I LOVE good bread. Few things make me happier than a basket of freshly baked, crusty bread being placed upon the table while I peruse the menu.
But........

When exactly did the whole "olive oil as a bread dipping sauce" get started anyway? It annoys me.
I don't recall seeing it in Italy. Did it start here in the States?

I much prefer good butter, but I'm happy to eat the bread plain, as well.
Unless I'm considering a purchase of said oil, I see no reason to dip my bread in it.

I find the plate containing the oil clutters the table, and more than once, I've come dangerously close to ruining shirts and other articles of clothing with it. Moreover, I seldom find the oil quality worthy - let's face it, they're not pouring the really good stuff for the entire dining room to dunk their bread in. Dirty little secret - often times, it's a 90% canola, 10% olive oil blend. No thanks.

These days, I just wave off the server when he offers me the oil - if I'm lucky enough to catch him before he offloads his greasy cargo onto my bread plate.

Anyone else feel the same way?

[Robin Garr]

John, I sort of feel the same way, and I don't recall seeing it in Italy either (for what it's worth, my travels are usually in the North). But I can testify that some of the better Italian spots around here do use decent olive oil, and I can't deny that I'll sometimes take a dip when it's offered.

I like dipping bread in oil, John, but only if the oil is excellent. I taste a bit before pouring the oil into a bread plate.

Nonetheless, the bread's the star of the show, and often it tastes great with nothing on it. So I always taste the bread first.

It's a nice way to get a tablespoon of olive oil a day, better than in a salad for my taste.

Hi John,

I too am a huge bread lover (aka carb-oholic), often prefer to do a Bob and eat it au-natural, and will always ask to have a basket of fresh bread to munch through whilst perusing the menu, instead of a starter.

Over here in Blighty a lot of our better food-led pubs will offer a basket as an aperatif, and for the most part they also bring a selection of mini catering-packaged butters and spreads. One of our locals however (and unsurprisingy a favorite), which also bakes all its own bread, softens some butter and flavors it with herbs/garlic etc, then re-sets it into little condiment dishes.

But in the Italian restuarants over here (or the Italian-style restuarants, as there are few real genuine ones near us), like you we have seen an increase in the trend to offer oils (and not good ones) with the bread. So we, like you, turn the oils down, and like Bob eat it plain if it's good enough.

So it looks like it's a trans-atlantic trend.

[Jenise]

I'm half Bob, half John. LOVE dipping bread in truly superb olive oil, but if it's not the real deal (and in restaurants, it invariably isn't) then I'll take my bread straight.

Sharon, welcome to the forum--cute avatar!

Yeah, we used to do the garlic butter at an Italian joint where I used to chef. I also like having some white bean paste instead of butter.

Welcome Sharon. You have found a great place to discuss all things food and wine. Chili, however, is a closed topic. Please refer to post #2 in the Chili thread. Great place, this is!

rwj

John,

Don't know when/where it got started but it does seem to be everywhere and always abominable. Most recently, have seen plates with oil, vinegar and grated cheese for dipping.
Agree with others- ONLY- if the bread and oil are great. Prefer good butter myself.

Many times I find that the "butter" is margarine or butter cut with margarine.
Barf!

rwj

Hi Jenise & thanks for the welcome.

The avatar is a cut down version of a favorite picture we have here at home - the full version is a bit too risky to use!

I'm nearly always in boots of one sort or another, be they walking ones or knee-highs; but my knee-highs aren't quite so lethal. Whilst I'm sure they'd turn a few heads, I don't think I'd be able to walk in these ones!

My 20 years of living in Europe, to include Italy, lie in the last century, so maybe things have changed in the interim, but I never once saw the dipping oil thing over there and pretty much assumed it was a chichi, U.S. American, faux European fabrication.

Now, I certainly can enjoy it and do, especially if the bread is crustily excellent and the dipping medium exhibits tasty, olivey goodness. But I do not associate it with the Old World (regardless of definition), simply with my love of carbs and cholesterol.

Focaccia seems to have suffered the same commercialized, chicaria fate.

Sharon, welcome to the group. Sounds like you know your stuff, unlike me, so you will be a positive addition.

I love the dip... BUT, it has to be a pretty ok oil, AND it has to include fresh grated, for-real parmigiano reggiano!

Without the parm it's just soggy bread.

Gary, I never saw dipping oil in Italy either, but I did see many Italians clean their plates with bread after the meal. I wonder if that's where the American practice began?

Many Italian restaurants in Northern New Jersey do not put olive oil on the table. They will serve it on request, and the oil is always superb.

And, for what it's worth, I've never had a raised eyebrow when I request the oil.

But, as Janet would say, ask for some olives instead, Bob, and pass on the bread while you're at it!

We prefer to do our oil dipping at home where we are in charge. Like to use a nice fresh EVOO with some Penseys Granulated Garlic in it.

Speaking of dipping at home, I have to check the oil in our generator today. It ran for eleven hours yesterday after a wicked thunder bumber whisked through here.

I'm with most of you--love good bread, especially the just baked little crusty loaves that are common in So. Cal Ital. places. But most of the oil is not worth dipping into. A couple of nights ago we ate at a very overpriced place called Trastavere in Hollywood and they had a really nice tapenade instead of the ubiquitous oil. The rest of the food wasn't so great, and I'm sure we won't be back there.
Ines

Thanks Bob, although I wouldn't necessarily say that myself.

I know what I like (good food; good wine (& good real ale for the other half); new places to see; new friends to meet), and I like to know.

So I recon being here'll be positive all round.

Sharon

(home made quorn, pepper, courgette (home grown) & garlic enchiladas for dinner tonite, along with a granary baguette warmed & made crusty using the residual heat of the oven - eaten au natural with the cheesy sauce topping of the enchiladas!).

Home made quorn? I gotta hear about this!

Er... Stuart, I think she meant the enchiladas incorporating it were homemade.

Are you criticing my reding comprenshin?

In a word... yes.

I've never been to big on it unless the oil was good until the last two neighborhood Italian places we lived close to. Both have decent quality oil, plus the dishes they bring out have garlic marinating in the oil.

So much so that if you decide to pull some of the garlic out of the ramekin, you can easily spread it over the bread. With really good bread, a true wonder. With average bread...a lot can be forgiven.

Home made quorn? I gotta hear about this!

Er... Stuart, I think she meant the enchiladas incorporating it were homemade.

Cyn, Stuart really thought the original stated "home made porn."

Ah! That would explain it then, Mike!

John,

To answer your original question, my first encounter with the oil dipping sauce was at the Macaroni Grille chain restaurant maybe 8 years ago now. And for a while afterwards, I saw it nowhere else. Then it started to grow, just like The Blob!!!