Does anybody here have an olive tree on their property or buy fresh olives at the market? I just realized that the only olives (black or green)that I have ever eaten have been from a jar or can. Do fresh olives taste more like the oil than their canned heavily salted counterparts? Are olives supposed to be cured or salted before consumption? I honestly don't know.

fresh olives are not to be eaten

http://www.specialtyproduce.com/spNetwork.ASP?Item=879&WCI=Frameset&WCE=Main

I wish I has known about that.

We saw fresh green olives in our farmer's market this past fall... so we picked some up. As soon as we got home I just had to try one. Horrible. You can't believe how bitter the taste was. I had to go brush my teeth afterwards to get rid of the taste!!!

There's a specialty market not too far from us that cures their own olives. The oil cured black olives are something very special.

Btw, on a trip to Spain, we stopped our car at an olive orchard and I tasted a green olive right off the tree. PTOOEY!

I remember my grandfather had a green olive tree in his yard when I was a kid. He would cure the olives in some sort of salt brine for quite a while before you could actually eat them.

quote:

Originally posted by Board-O:
Btw, on a trip to Spain, we stopped our car at an olive orchard and I tasted a green olive right off the tree. PTOOEY!

Did the same thing... Had to be one of the most discusting things I tried.

Makes you wonder how they thought of curing them to make them edible.

Vin, I thought the same thing when I tasted one. I thought, "What could make anybody think these things would be good under any cirumstances?" I've got to give that guy (OK, person) a lot of credit.

i believe they found out by accident....same way they found out about wine im sure

in the way back years im sure man was more concerned with finding something.....anything to eat that did not make them sick and could be stored and easily transported....especially in the areas acient olives are native to

with salt as the main curing agent im sure they just found some bitter fruit that was still edible and packed a bunch away......as time went on im sure they realized the taste only improved.....to the point they became pretty damn good

I think sun-dried Morrocan olives are the best-- intense olive flavor, no brine flavor.

Spanish Farga (black, olive oil packed) olives are heavenly. I like them all pretty much, except when made by some moron without a clue. My buddies at the Greek liquour store on Nob Hill know another Greek guy who cures his own olives and I get some from them, from time to time. Most amazing stuff, also packed in olive oil... Time to pay Spiro a visit.
French Luques are pretty good too.

I can see where the green ones would be like acorns before curing. I guess all of them are like that though.

pretty much every grocery store(in both LA and NYC) have an olive bar these days with 6-12 different olives to sample from.

I stayed on a Vinyard in Tuscany where there was a large olive grove just outside the front door of our apartment. It was October and the olives were ready for picking so I knew that I had to taste them. I also knew that it was going to be wrong diddly wrong wrong but I could not help it. Anyway , see above for reaction.

I also have an olive tree in my garden and it is very pretty, but living in the middle of England means that the olives are what you might call... miniscule. So small, in fact that you would need the whole tree to get less than a teaspoon of oil, basically pips.

Best I've tried recently are Spanish Albaquinas (not sure of the spelling). Tiny green olives, about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of most olives, packed in an olive oil/brine mix. Crisp texture (by olive standards) and very bright flavor.

The best tour I took in Napa was not a vineyard, but an olive grove.....Round Pond, off rte 128. Excitingly educational, it was a private tour. At the end there was a table spread for my soon exwife to be and me that was wondrous. The tour guide taught us to taste olive oil in the traditional manner (similar to wine) and to taste vinegar, curiously sucking it from a sugar cube. The Spanish oils were buttery and soft and those from Italian olives were peppery. The infused oils were incredible. Most of Round Pond's output is grabbed by chefs in the valley for their kitchens, but some can be expensively purchased direct from the orchard. At no time did we taste raw olives.

Dick