Dana Shortt Gourmet on 570 The Food Show

We had a great visit with Dana Shortt of the wonderful food-destination Dana Shortt Gourmet this past Sunday.

The name of the game for this visit was olive oil. And what a range of flavours and aromas that you’ll be able to find at Shortt’s Uptown Waterloo store.

Don’t assume just any old glug off the grocery store shelves will do when it comes to that take-for-granted-ingredient olive oil: there are entire worlds of flavour and aroma–and quality–to be opened with good olive oil.

While the store has a wide array of foods and culinary products, including healthy, nutritious, delicious and expertly prepared meals-to-take-away, a recent addition to the product roster is some simply divine olive oils and vinegars.

On-air with Dana Shortt ... Gourmet.

Shortt has researched these oil right down to the basic science of the quercetins, polyphenols and healthy HDL (good) cholesterol. There is a lot technical stuff she can tell you about if you are so inclined, but what you need mostly to know is about the great and varied tastes of the oils.

Oils and vinegars for use on their own or with other ingredients.

That would include wild mushroom and sage olive oil, chipotle OO, Persian lime OO and an absolutely amazing butter olive oil that is flavoured with herbs and flowers and is very convincing in that flavour; it’s impressive to say the least.

They report that they have about 15 varieties of EVOO. You can sample these oils from a row of stainless steel “fusti” containers with spigots–it is a veritable tasting bar of olive oil.

Stainless steel containers with spigots for sampling olive oil.

Non-flavoured oils include Portuguese Arbequina, Spanish Hojiblanca, Californian Manzanillo, Italian Nocellara del Belice and Portuguese Picual. They each have a distinctive spectrum of flavour and depth.

Shortt and her staff can explain what extra virgin OO is–first cold-pressing–and other details of its production. But they can also introduce you to some spectacular balsamic vinegars, the syrupy elixir, with origins in Modena, Italy, which has been reduced, and reduced, and yet further reduced.

And aged: some balsamics are as old as 18 years. But DSG also has the stuff infused with raspberries, blueberries, vanilla, and dark chocolate … try any of those on your berries or ice cream!

Just a few of the wide range of oils and vinegars available from Dana Shortt Gourmet.