Amurca

Amurca is the bitter-tasting, dark-colored, watery sediment that settles out of unfiltered olive oil over time. It is also known as "olive oil lees" in English and Turtub in Jordan.[1] Historically, amurca was used for numerous purposes, as first described by Cato the Elder in De Agri Cultura, and later by Pliny the Elder.[2] Cato mentions its uses as a building material (128), pesticide (91, 92, 96, 98), herbicide (91, 129), dietary supplement for oxen (103) and trees (36, 93), food preservative (99, 101), as a maintenance product for leather (97), bronze vessel (98), and vases (100), and as a treatment for firewood in order to avoid smoke (130).[3] It has even been used as an astringent, which was called by the same name.

Amurca pit at one oil mill, in the province of Jaén.

References

  1. ↑ Janakat, Sana M.; Fwzieh Hammad (January 23, 2013). "Chemical Composition of Amurca Generated from Jordanian Olive Oil" (PDF). J Nutr Food Sci 3 (2): 186. doi:10.4172/2155-9600.1000186. Retrieved 30 August 2013.
  2. ↑ Pliny, John Bostock; Henry Thomas Riley (1856). The Natural History of Pliny: Amurca of Olives - Twenty-one Remedies. p. 486.
  3. ↑ http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cato/De_Agricultura/H*.html#130.

External links

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728). "article name needed". Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (first ed.). James and John Knapton, et al. 


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