O Is For Olive
There are few ingredients quite so bound up with the idea of a good life as the olive. Synonymous with sun soaked terraces, long lunches and the kind of effortless Mediterranean cooking that has captivated cooks the world over, the olive carries with it a sense of place that few other foods can match. Small, briny and endlessly variable, it is a fruit that has shaped entire cuisines, economies and ways of life.
The olive's story stretches back further than almost any other cultivated food, with evidence of olive cultivation dating back some six thousand years to the eastern Mediterranean. It became central to the civilisations of ancient Greece and Rome, prized not only as food but as a source of oil for cooking, lighting and anointing, and its branches came to symbolise peace and prosperity, a meaning that endures to this day. From those early groves, the olive spread steadily across southern Europe and North Africa, and its cultivation remains, even now, a slow and patient art passed down through generations.
A Fruit Of Many Faces
What makes the olive so fascinating is just how much its character can change depending on when it is picked and how it is prepared. Left on the tree, olives ripen from green to a deep, almost black purple, with green olives offering a firmer texture and a sharper, more assertive flavour, while black olives tend to be softer and richer, their taste mellowing as they mature. Neither can be eaten straight from the tree, both are intensely bitter in their raw state, and it is only through curing, whether in brine, salt or oil, that the olive becomes the food we recognise, its bitterness transformed into something savoury, complex and deeply moreish.
This process of curing varies enormously from region to region, and it is this variation that gives the olive its extraordinary range. Kalamata olives, cured in wine vinegar brine, offer a fruity sharpness that has made them a favourite in salads and mezze. Niçoise olives, small and intensely flavoured, are inseparable from the French salad that bears their name. Sicilian and Spanish varieties bring their own distinct character, shaped by the particular soil, climate and tradition of the groves in which they are grown.
Of course, no discussion of the olive would be complete without its oil, arguably the fruit's greatest gift to the kitchen. Pressed from the whole fruit, olive oil ranges from mild and buttery to intensely peppery and grassy, depending on the variety and the point at which the olives were harvested. It has become so central to good cooking that it is difficult to imagine a Mediterranean kitchen, or indeed many modern British ones, functioning without it.
Fun Facts About Olives
Olive trees are remarkably long lived, with some specimens in the Mediterranean believed to be well over a thousand years old and still producing fruit.
Green and black olives can come from the very same tree, the difference lying simply in when the fruit is harvested rather than the variety grown.
It takes several months of curing in brine, salt or oil to make raw olives edible, as they are naturally too bitter to eat straight from the branch.
Ancient Olympic athletes were traditionally rewarded with a wreath of olive branches rather than a medal, a tradition that gave rise to the phrase an olive branch as a symbol of peace.
Using Olives In The Kitchen
Scatter whole through a simple tomato and red onion salad with good olive oil and a splash of red wine vinegar.
Stir chopped olives through a warm puttanesca sauce with capers, anchovies and chilli for a punchy pasta dish.
Blend with capers, garlic and olive oil to make a rich tapenade for spreading on crusty bread or serving alongside grilled fish.
Add whole to a slow braised chicken or lamb tagine, where their brine adds depth and cuts through the richness of the sauce.
The olive is proof that patience and tradition can produce something extraordinary from the simplest of beginnings. From bitter fruit to briny delicacy, it remains one of the Mediterranean's greatest and most enduring gifts to the table.
As the old proverb goes, the olive tree is the richest legacy a father can leave his children, a reminder that some of the finest things in the kitchen are worth waiting generations for.
