the olive blog

Marché Biologique Batignolles

Today the olive blog visited the Marché Biologique Batignolles an organic market in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.  It is located just near the Rome metro stop on Boulevard des Batignolles and runs every Saturday morning between 9am and 2pm. It is not a great market for olive lovers but there were a couple of stalls selling oil certified as organic and one with a small range of table olives.

Poor Californian Season

The LA Times reports that 2006 will be the smallest California table olive crop in at least 25 years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that this year's olive harvest, which began last week, will reach just 50,000 tons — the lowest since 1981 and only 35% of what was picked last year.

olives or olive oil

Dr. Blonz from nashua telegraph tackles the question "Do olives offer same benefits as their oil?" with the answer here.

Broken tooth

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that an Iowa City man who broke a tooth on an olive pit can sue the New York-based company that imports and packages Spanish olives. More here.

Sultana Olive Recipe

Sam Hristofis shares his family recipe for preserving "sultana"  Kalamata olives here on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Gardening Australia website. Olives, rock salt and a bucket with holes and lid are all that is needed. Then begings a 10 to 14 day period of up ending the bucket. Once olives reach the right taste, wash thoroughly in fresh cold water until all salt is removed. he then recommends putting the olives in zip-lock bags and keeping them in a freezer needed. Olives will keep for years in the freezer. When required put olives in a container and add 50:50 mix of oil and vinegar to cover. Add herbs of your choice - basil, chilli, garlic, oregano, lemon, dill.

Well worth a try.

Romans and Olives

Nancy Price has an interesting article on the history of olives at the Oroville Mercury-Register.  An extract below:

"With the invention of the screw press by the Romans the use of olive oil became very popular and standards of judging the fruit were adopted: The finest oil was that made from the small white olives picked in September, oil from green olives picked in December was good quality table oil, and the oil from black olives was used by the common people for cooking, lamps and annointments.

The Romans ate the pickled and cured olives in large quantities and were thought by many to be an aphrodisiac. Some of their preserved olives were found in the ruins at Pompeii. The methods of curing ran from water baths, to salt brine soaking to preserving in wood ash paste. The seasonings used varied with taste preference, some olives were soaked in salt and vinegar, some in wine and honey and others in cumin, fennel, coriander, mint, pepper, and rue."

Manfredi

The Sydney Morning Herlad's Steve Manfredi gives his views on the different methods for curing olives in this article. According to Manfredi,

"Lye-cured and ash-cured olives are best avoided. This rather harsh treatment softens the flesh and strips the olive of most of its flavour. This type of olive is uniformly jet black and lacks any true olive flavour.

Brine curing is another matter. There, the olives - almost always green - are soaked in a saltwater bath for up to six months. The bitterness is leached out slowly but the flavour is miraculously preserved. Brine-cured olives usually have a smooth, shiny skin and can show differing varietal characteristics.

For most black olives, and for green olives where a crunchier texture is desired, dry salt-curing is the go. The olives are layered with coarse salt in roughly a two-to-one ratio. Every three days they are mixed through the salt and after two months they're washed, dried and preserved in olive oil and aromatic herbs."

He also provides a nice recipe for chicken with olives.

Olive Bars

Long a feature of European markets and stores olive bars are increasing popular in North America. Read on here.

marché d’Aligre

This week the olive blog has been posting on the covered market at place d'Aligre in Paris. Yesterday's post was on Sur Les Quais a vendor of olive oil and olive products. Today some snaps of another vendor's stall, inside the covered part of the market, with some table olives.

The Big Olive

The Big Olive is located at Tailem Bend in South Australia. the olive blog thinks it has a fair claim to be the largest set of olives (11 metres) in the world but would be happy to hear of larger ones.  More information on the big olive can be found here.