Genco Olive Oil Import Company

Guide To Olives

History
The history of the olive is a long one, dating back to Biblical times. The olive branch was the symbol shown by God to Noah to indicate the end of the flood. According to Greek mythology, the olive tree was a gift from the goddess Athena to the people of Athens. In fact, olive trees were cultivated in Crete and Assyria over 5000 years ago. And the olive itself has been eaten and enjoyed by all the peoples of the region for thousands of years. Throughout the Mediterranean, the olive has always been highly valued; olive oil was used as fuel; as a preservative; as an analgesic; and as a perfume. Olive wood was used for construction and decoration.

Picking
The picking process is an important factor in determining the final taste and quality of the olive as it appears on our table. To pick black olives, many cost conscious producers use sticks or machines to shake the ripe fruit from the trees. Some producers leave the olives on the trees until they are so ripe that they fall off by themselves. In either case, the result is an inferior black olive. Since not all olives on a tree reach ripeness at the same time, machine or stick harvesting means that many of the olives collected may be under or overripe. Olives harvested by either method are likely to be damaged by this rough handling. They have an inconsistent texture with many of the mushy, soft spots found on any bruised fruit. Mechanical picking also yields an olive with an inferior flavour, as the bruising alters the chemical make-up the olive.

To avoid these pitfalls, the best producers use an older, more time-consuming method-hand picking. Careful hand-picking insures that each olive is plucked at just the right stage and all bruising is avoided. The careful handling is evident in the cured olive's firm, even texture, and in its wonderful rich flavour.

Colour
The colour of an olive indicates the stage of ripeness at which it was picked. Green olives are olives picked before they are ripe, usually in September or October. They should have a firm texture and nutty flavour. What we refer to as "black" olives actually run the gamut from light brown, to beautiful shades of red and purple, all to way to deepest black. As a general rule, the darker the olive, the riper it was when it was picked. Black olives are usually picked in November and December, sometimes as late as January.

The lone exception to this rule is the "olive" which more Americans eat than any other-the canned "black-ripe" olive. These olives are picked green, then (for reasons unknown-greater marketing appeal?) pumped with oxygen to turn them black, their new colour fixed in place with ferrous gluconate. Since they taste like no other black or green olive (in fact, they have almost no taste at all), it is impossible to put them in the same class as you would any other olive. "Black-ripe" olives are to a hand-picked Kalamata olive what Wonder Bread is to a great loaf of double baked rye.

Curing
The olive itself is quite simply the fruit of the olive tree. But unlike most fruits, the olive is never eaten in its raw state. The high percentage of glucosides naturally found in the raw olive makes it incredibly bitter. Anyone who has unknowingly popped an uncured olive into his mouth will testify to this terrible bitterness. For the olive to become edible, the bitterness must be drawn from the olive, through one of several curing methods:

Lye Curing-This is the curing method used by nearly every large commercial olive producer. Invented in Spain, lye curing is the most time and cost efficient method of curing. Unfortunately, it also produces the least flavourful olive. Raw olives are submerged in vats filled with a lye solution. The alkaline lye quickly leaches out the glucosides from the olive. Unfortunately, the fast acting lye also takes with it much of the olive's natural flavour, leaving behind a slight chemical after-taste.

Water or Brine Curing-Though water curing is much more traditional, and produces a far superior olive, most large producers have abandoned it for the faster and cheaper "Spanish cure." To cure in this older slower fashion, the olives are simply submerged in vats of fresh water or seasoned salted brine. The liquid naturally soaks the bitterness from the olives over a period of weeks or months. During that time, the water is regularly changed according to the preference of each producer. When the olives are aged in brine, it serves not only to remove the natural bitterness of the olives, but seasons them as well. Kalamata olives, for example, are cured in a red wine vinegar brine which helps give them their delicious, almost wine-like flavour. Some producers begin curing in a water bath, and then later shift their olives into a seasoned brine. Water or brine yield a naturally cured olive, bringing out and enhancing the natural flavours of the olives.

Dry Curing-In this method, raw olives are rubbed with salt and left to cure for a matter of weeks or months. The salt pulls the moisture from the olives, taking with it the olives' bitterness. The salt is them removed and the olives coated with olive oil to keep them from becoming too dry. (Some olives, such as Nyons, are dry cured first, and then aged in brine.) Dry cured olives have a deliciously concentrated full flavour, with the wrinkled appearance and texture of prunes. Their intense olive flavour makes them very popular among those who like their olives full-flavoured.

Pits
Let's face it. Real olives have pits. Just like cherries, avocados, and peaches. (Those tasteless pitted "black-ripe" in cans have neither the taste nor the texture of real olives, so they don't count.) The way we figure it, putting up with the inconvenience of the pits is a small price to pay for enjoying the wonderful flavours of carefully picked and cured olives. How you get rid of the pits when you eat olives at cocktail parties is a concern for etiquette experts, not eaters. For cooking purposes, it's really not that hard to pit black olives by hand. Just position one end of an olive against our thumb, place two fingers over the other end, and push with your thumb.

The pit should slide right out between your fingers. If you prefer, you can use a sharp paring knife. Really, it's not that hard. Trust us; it's worth every bit of extra effort. For a few minutes of extra work, you'll have pitted olives that really taste like olives.

Types of Olives
As with wine, the soil and climate of the region where as an olive is grown have a marked effect on its flavour. The location in which an olive is grown, the style and time of its picking, and the method used to cure it, all determine the flavour of an olive. Each type and style of olive has its own unique flavour and texture.