Smith College Olive Oil Tasting Connects Food, Culture and Shared Traditions

The smell of olive oil and toasted bread filled the room as students gathered around tables to sample oils from different regions of Italy. They compared the oils’ flavor profiles while listening to their peers introduce each oil and its unique background. For many attendees, it was their first time tasting olive oil alone.

Held Oct. 7, A Sensory Journey Into Italian Olive Oil brought together students from Michele Monserrati’s Intermediate Italian Conversation course and Suleiman Mourad’s Food, Identity and Religion in the Middle East course. The event, organized in collaboration with the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute and sponsored by the Center for the Environment, Ecological Design & Sustainability (CEEDS), invited students to explore the cultural significance of olive oil through a tasting.

For Monserrati, an Italian and World Literature professor who organized the event, the tasting was an extension of his pedagogical approach to language education. “In this age of AI, I like to teach language as an experiential activity,” said Monserrati. “It’s not just learning rules and grammar, but there is also an involvement in a material experience.”

He explains that food is a tangible and more accessible way for students to understand Italian culture when their language skills might not allow them to engage with complex cultural mediums like poetry or literature.

In Monserrati’s course, students studied olive oil via research, podcasts and classroom discussions before preparing individual presentations about different varieties for the tasting. At the event, students introduced six oils from several Italian regions, explaining their origins, flavor profiles and production processes.

For students, the experience offered a way to engage with aspects of Italian culture that might not be covered in a conventional language class. Thalia Hyland ’28, a Classics major who has been studying Italian at Smith, said language classes can lack an element of “humanization” because students are oftentimes unable to be fully immersed in the country and its people.

Photos courtesy of Lauren Anderson