Thank you little tree

I am drawn to head north again, out of the gorges and moun­tain drama of the Pri­o­rat and up onto the vast land­scape of south­ern Lleida, those close yet, for too long, dis­tant rolling plains of his­tory and mys­tery.

A few years back I would reg­u­larly crest the ridge and sud­denly feel that space, and see the city of Lleida in the pas­tel dis­tance, a galleon rid­ing the swell on a vast sea of ochre and green.

But I failed to stop and breathe. I was teach­ing at a busi­ness school be­side the River Segre, rudely bustling in and out of the province with no time for pleas­antries. I did not – I still do not – know much about it at all. I am more fa­mil­iar with the moun­tain­ous north; shame­ful given that I have been a neigh­bour for six­teen years.

So we will go this year, slowly. And there is some­where in par­tic­u­lar we des­per­ately want to visit, to ac­knowl­edge, to be able to speak of with cer­tainty; to feel. It is the com­mu­nity of Ar­beca, home to 2400 peo­ple, set among the groves of Les Gar­rigues.

Those would be ar­be­quina olive groves, of course, for it is this mod­est place that gives that ex­tra­or­di­nary fruit its name – the juice of which has, in no small part, al­lowed me per­ma­nence and a truly re­mark­able sense of place and be­long­ing.

A writer with­out a name that trips off the tongue usu­ally has more than one hat. To spend a year on a book or a screen­play with no cer­tainty of in­come re­quires ... um ... a lit­tle dex­ter­ity and bound­less faith, not least from your fam­ily. So with one hand I put pen to paper (metaphor­i­cally) and with the other I work with my part­ner Mag­gie cul­ti­vat­ing olives and our small ex­port busi­ness.

We sup­ply clients in Britain and Canada, and this year our brand, Mother's Gar­den, will begin to ex­port Pri­o­rat ar­be­quina olive oil to Amer­ica.

So we need and want to go to Ar­beca. It will be a homage, and we hope to find out more about the roots of this re­mark­able lit­tle tree that in so many ways is syn­ony­mous with this na­tion – it may be small, but it is in­cred­i­bly hardy, fruit­ful, wise and beau­ti­ful. And I want an­swers. Maybe one of you can help.

Did one of the Dukes of Med­i­naceli bring this in­domitable tree with small round olives back from the Holy Lands, and if so which Duke and when ex­actly? We have a mys­tery from the mid­dle-ages to ex­plore, one that has grown into a boun­ti­ful story – a story, I humbly sug­gest, that can be one of the foun­da­tions of Cata­lan iden­tity. I take both my hats off to the Cata­lan co­op­er­a­tives and in­de­pen­dent grow­ers of this su­per­food who end­lessly strive.

The qual­i­ties of pre­mium, fresh Cata­lan ar­be­quina extra vir­gin olive oil, im­bued with the good­ness of these lands, are being ap­pre­ci­ated more and more around the world – the juice of a lit­tle fruit with sub­tle and del­i­cate com­plex­ity and a bright, grassy, fresh aroma. It is not a thump­ing olive oil, but with out­stand­ing qual­i­ties of its own, with the gift of lift­ing not mask­ing the flavours of com­pan­ion foods. I could go on. I am in­clined to, I admit, but I'm out of space.

We can't wait, though, to take up a 2017 in­vi­ta­tion to lead a tast­ing in Wash­ing­ton DC, a cap­i­tal that might, by then, be ready for some hon­est nour­ish­ment.