maria Alcala of Medrid speaks for many Mediterranean people when she says that a meal without olive oil would be abore. no one knows when the mediterranean civilizations initally fell in love with olive. that occurred before recorded history. However there is evidence that the cultivation of olive treees began in countries around the Mediterranean Sea in approxiately 4000b.c. and 2000 years produce oil from olives. The Mediterranean still accounts for 99 percent of all world olive oil production.