Non-refined olive oils — even your rare low-acidity example — do have a low smoke point in practice. All store bought “extra virgin” olive oils in my experience also burn closer to 300-350 degrees fahrenheit.
Are you a vegetarian by chance? You said most people cook well below 405 degrees. Traditional American households do exceed that temperature on the grill and the stove.
When olive oil burns, the smoke isn’t always highly visible. Examine close up and from the side. The rising smoke can look a lot like heat distortion.
As a final point, for anyone still here, smoke points aren’t an automatic reason to avoid a cooking oil. Chemical stability is variably correlated, so maybe do some more reading.
Yes, of course. Because of the "air quotes".
I am not vegetarian. I cook everything with olive oil, including searing meats in my French oven. So does everyone I know. I think what you are talking about and what I'm talking about are entirely different substances. I suspect the information on wikipedia, and in your sources, is also far off the reality of olive oil as it's used by people in the region of the world where it's traditionally the shortening of choice. Otherwise, we'd have stopped using it long ago.
> You said most people cook well below 405 degrees.
To clarify, that wasn't me, but wikipedia. I don't personally know what temperatures most people cook with and, I suspect, neither do you. What I know is that there's a few million people in countries around the Mediterranean that cook almost exclusively with olive oil and if it was as easy to burn it as you insist, that wouldn't be the case.
I suspect that you are relying on second-hand information but do not have first-hand experience of a lifetime (and a long tradition) of cooking with olive oil. I've heard more weird things coming from the same place, of lack of first-hand experience, for example that olive oil turns bitter if you heat it, something that I heard for the first time from an American dude with a youtube foodie channel, but not of course from my many friends, family and acquaintances that cook with olive oil as a matter of course. Again, if that sort of thing were true, we wouldn't be using it.
This is really the question to ask yourself: where does your information come from? Is there any evidence to the contrary?
Edit:
> This is really the question to ask yourself: where does your information come from? Is there any evidence to the contrary?
I cooked almost exclusively with olive oil for many years. You can ask anyone in America about their experiences with it, and it will probably be the same. I can't speak about taste, but the olive oils found in our stores begin to smoke extremely easily.
