Harvesting olives is a time consuming, incredibly monotous and physically demanding activity, yet one that in my second season of doing it, I absolutely adore. Especially if there is a warming November sun and some nice music playing on my son’s iPhone thingie. If it is blowing a cold chilly mistral then we need warm coats, hats and gloves, however so far this year we have been blessed with sunny blue skies.
In my mind I have visions of this ancient, annual ritual of harvesting of olives in Provence going back for ages and ages. And it is not even a matter of how many olives you harvest . . . as my first visit to the olive mill I saw many elderly couples turning up with just one or two wicker baskets of their home grown olives . . . to pick-up trucks laden with plastic baskets piled high.
We haven’t quite completed our task for this year, however so far we have done 100 kilos of olives, which will produce 15 litres of oil. Beautiful golden olive oil, free of any additives, to be stored away in a dark place ready to use in a myriad of delicious dishes. I particularly love it’s strong grassy pungent taste when it is newly pressed . . . yet this taste seems to dissipate in time to a more mellow flavour.
And just look at all the different colours of olives . . . seeing so many different colours was a revelation to me . . . I had always assumed they came in green or black . . . but not at all. They are the most amazing mixture of deep beautiful colours.
A great book to check out is The Flavors of Olive OIl: A Tasting Guide and Cookbook by Deborah Krasner. (Winner of a James Beard Award).
One of the bins of olives at the Olive mill waiting to be stone ground into olive oil. My first time at the mill waiting to hand in our harvested olives at the mill, I was amazed to see all the different types of people there in the line. Elderly couples with a couple of beautiful baskets filled with their gardens worth of olives, to us with our crates, and then pick up trucks with loads and loads of olives. All our olives mixed in together, unless you have enough for a pressing all to yourself. I imagine this will be important to the organic/bio olive growers.
Here is an old gnarled beauty, still giving up its annual harvest to its lucky owner.
