Olive Blog

I was recently in Southern California, right during the heart of the olive harvest. Trees everywhere were covered in fruit, no one cared, except gardeners who would have to clean the tons of fallen fruit away before the oils stained whatever they splat on after falling from the tree.

I thought I should have a go at home curing some. It’s a popular topic on the internet, not so much among native Californians, who aren’t quite ready for extreme localism yet. Micheal Pollan excepted.

We picked pounds and pounds of fruit. Picking entails spreading a king sized sheet under a tree and sending a kid up to shake the branches, it’s the kind of agriculture you can perform with a glass of zinfandel in hand, while standing on the ground shouting that they’re not doing it right, my type of thing. We gathered maybe ten pounds of fruit and then begun sorting. Anything overripe, blemished, bruised, eaten by some creature was tossed. We yielded maybe four pounds of fruit when we were done. Packed into ziplock bags and smuggled home in our suitcases like we were mules.

I started reading about olives and the range of opinion regarding curing is immense. Everything from do it EXACTLY like this or you will die to eh, whatever seems right. I settled on three different techniques, from the anally retentive to the whatever method. I chose to cure the green olives in lye, the reddish ones in brine and the black ones in a Greek kalamata style in course salt.

The lye cured were ready to eat first. They have a hyper processed mouth feel and texture, similar to a tinned olive. In fact I’m certain that all tinned olives are lye cured, it strips them of a fair amount of flavour, but is extremely quick.

After a couple days in the lye they were soft but not ready to eat, as they tasted like sticking your tongue on the terminals of a nine volt battery. I soaked them in water changing frequently for four days, then a day in brine and flavourings to finish them. Here they are, notice how they actually are olive green, as fresh olives are not, they’re more vibrant.

I’m waiting for the salt packed and brined olives to lose they’re astringency and finish curing, I’ll post more when they’re ready.

Tagged as: olives