The Humble Olive
There is an olive tree in Croatia which has been calculated to be about 1600 years old; not only that, but it still produces olives which are made into top quality olive oil.
I find this sort of data humbling - but then olives themselves are a humble fruit. As far back as 3000 BC the trees were grown commercially in Crete, cultivated as a source of olive oil, fine wood, olive leaf (for medicinal purposes) and olives for consumption.
Although today olives are cultivated in many regions of the world, it is the Mediterranean which is mostly associated with them and whose very flavour, many writers feel, is encapsulated in its fruit and its oil. A hot climate and a proximity to the coast are the ideal conditions - although in Italy the olive tree has traditionally been planted to make use of the poorest areas unfit for other economic use (steep slopes, difficult climate, poor soil, for example.) Further evidence of its humble nature, history and origins.
And yet there was nothing humble about the plump olives warmed in ouzo, chilli and garlic I could not stop eating on the verandah of an inner city Sydney pub recently: perfect partners to a flinty Pugliese white wine as the sun went down. If anything, olives glamourise a dish, lift it to lovelier levels. And then, of course, there are so many different types, each with their own individual characters. Italian olives alone present a great range - and only Elizabeth David could describe them like poetry. ‘There are dark, luminous black olives from Gaeta;' she tells us in Italian Food, ‘little coal black olives of Rome, smoky and wrinkled; sloe-like black olives of Castellamare, like bright black eyes; olives brown and purple and yellow from Sardinia; Sicilian black olives in oil; olives of a dozen different greens... olives of all the greens of the evening sea...'
Most people are aware that green olives are just the unripe fruit. In Spain, table olives are traditionally picked at this stage - which generally results in olives that are plumper, firmer and more sharply flavoured than the black. As black olives have been given longer to ripen, they have a higher oil content, giving them a milder flavour and softer texture. Beware, however, ink-black olives in brine which are usually green olives subjected to chemical trickery - in other words, dyed, with very little flavour to speak of. Beware too buying olives which have been pitted: much flavour has been sacrificed in the process. Janni Kyritsis (ex- Berowra Waters and MG Garage) suggests that to remove olive flesh from the stones, simply place the olives between two tea towels then gently hit them with the palm of your hand or with a meat mallet. Pitting olives is an occupation I actually find soothing simply with my own two hands.
It is always better, when cooking with olives, to add them toward the very end as prolonged cooking accentuates their bitterness. Then again, one of my all-time favourite recipes for Chicken Cacciatore never seems to suffer from the handful of olives flung in with the peeled tomatoes once the chicken pieces have browned in their oil perfumed with rosemary and garlic and wine then left to simmer for up to forty minutes... I have to be cunning, anyway, when it comes to cooking with olives: despite his Greek ancestry, my partner cannot abide the things. I haven't yet made him my little Olive Beer Breads and I can almost guarantee he would love them. Oven-warm, with a tomato salad and some creamy Persian fetta, they are a celebration of a humble fruit - and absolutely gorgeous.
OLIVE BEER BREADS
Pit a cup of black olives. In a large bowl combine 3 cups of self-raising flour with 1 dessertspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 can of beer. Work the olives into the sticky mixture then dollop into large oiled muffin moulds. Bake for an hour in a 175¢ªC oven.
SOURCE: http://www.echo.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=974&Itemid=543