Cold-Pressed Gold - Saveur Magazine

This artisanal canola oil has a surprisingly rich flavor

05/14/2008
by: Pamela Cuthbert

Versatile, neutral-tasting canola oil has become such a workhorse in the modern kitchen that most people aren't aware of how recent a creation it is. Developed in the 1970s in Canada from a hybridized version of rapeseed, which comes from the tall, spindly rape plant (a relative of mustard and cabbage), the new cooking oil had rapeseed oil's low saturated-fat content but, thanks to crossbreeding, considerably lower levels of erucic acid, a natural compound that studies suggest is toxic in large doses. Canola, whose name is short for "Canada oil, low acidn, was marketed as a healthful alternative to peanut oil and other cooking fats that were in wide use at the time. Canota also had a mellower, nuttier flavor than bitter-tasting rapeseed oil, but most consumers never got to taste it, because the high heat process manufacturers used to produce the oil neutralized the seed's flavor, making it fine for all-purpose cooking but not much else.

In the late 1990s, Jason Persall, a fourth generation farmer in Waterford, Ontario, read an article about a farmer who was producing canoia oil using a cold-press process that did not sap the seed's flavor. Intrigued by the idea that this common, local product could, like olive oil, possess distinctive tastes, Persall decided to build a small oil processing plant, purchasing his canola seed from a group of farmers who were growing a variety that, unlike the seeds cultivated across most of Canada, had not been genetically modified.

To make his oil, Persall employs a modernized version of a traditional cold-press method-used for centuries in Europe for making flaxseed oil and olive oil-chat entails simply crushing the seeds and filtering the oil that's extracted from them. The result is a golden-hued oil with the grassy aroma of canoh blossoms and a toasty, walnutty flavor that works beautifully as a salad dressing just served on its own with crusty bread. Persall's prodistine Gourmet Canola Oil, is available in 250-milliliter bottles for $8.99 and 500-milliliter bottles for $14.99. To order, call 519/443-4658 or visit www.pristinegourmet.com.