I was in Italy for much of the last two years but I was always in and out and usually stayed for between a couple weeks and a couple months. It was usually long enough that I didn’t want to eat out every day but not long enough that I wanted to invest in a lot of "core ingredients" for cooking.
As a result, I was frustrated that I couldn’t find olive oil in bottles less than one liter. In the US, it is usually difficult to find bottles larger than half a liter so I couldn’t imagine why there was nothing smaller than what was, for me, extra, extra large.
I asked Enrico Zini (who is from Bologna) if you could find smaller bottles of olive oil in Italy. He paused and then asked in return, "why would anyone want less than 1 liter of olive oil."
I guess that was my answer.
Heh. At my parents house, 1 litre would be ridiculous. We use 5 litre bottles all the time. We have like 4 on storage.
Of course, producing your own oil in the town’s olive cooperative helps.
Actually, when I was in America, I just hated to buy some food, because I could never find any product in the “normal” size : like only 1 liter of milk, or just 1 kilo of cereals.
I think all of this is food for researchers in sociology.