Fresh Green Olives
Estimated Inventory, 15 lbs : 0
Description/Taste
A beautiful kelly green colored fruit, fresh green olives are very hard and much too bitter to eat in their fresh state. Fresh green olives must be cured to be edible.
Seasons/Availability
Grown in California, fresh green olives are available mid-September to mid-November.
Current Facts
Green olives contain a high acid content and do not require extensive processing. Green olives are not "cooked" like the black olives but green olives are cured with lye. The method of curing used makes a big difference in their taste. Annual production of olives in the United States today is 150,000 tons which is less than five per cent of the world crop. Only a very small amount of these olives, about three per cent, ends up as table olives; almost all the rest are pressed into olive oil.
Nutritional Value
Olives get nearly eighty-five per cent of their calories from fat. However, it is predominantly the good fat, the mono-unsaturated variety. Olives contain an abundance of sodium, having about 350 milligrams in three large green olives.
Applications
Fresh green olives are not edible until they have been processed or "cured" either by the salting method or the water method. For the salting method, place washed fresh olives in a wicker basket or a plastic container with holes; cover with medium-coarse salt. Set in the sun; cover with cheesecloth. Toss olives twice a day until the bitter fluid is drawn out. To prevent molding, bring indoors at night. For the water method, wash olives; cover with a solution of salt water: one cup of salt to each quart of water; place in a crock or glass jar. Put a weight on top to keep olives submerged. Olives can remain in this brine for months. Marinate before serving. To store, cover olives with water or oil to keep them moist. Refrigerate in a nonmetal-covered container.
Ethnic/Cultural Info
It's worth any trouble stuffing green olives as consumers love the way the stuffed green olives look packed in their gleaming glass jars. European olives are brine-cured with a wide variety of flavors and sizes. Some black olives are oil-cured, such as French Nyons; or dry-cured, as is the Moroccan. Nicoise olives are grown in several countries and the soil, climate and even the air of each region will effect the taste of the olive. The size of the olive does not indicate its flavor as smaller does not necessarily mean sweeter. European olives vary in size from as tiny as a chick-pea to as large as a fresh date. Small olives are almost impossible to find in the United States; most olives in this country are graded as medium, large, extra-large, jumbo, colossal and super-colossal.
Geography/History
Originating around the shores of the Mediterranean at least five thousand years ago, it wasn't until the fifteenth century when olives were first introduced into America. Growing on nearly thirty-three thousand acres, the fertile San Joaquin Valley in California is the major producer of olives in the United States from and estimated fifty million olive trees. Olives were once used mainly as ballast and didn't gain edible popularity until an innovative entrepreneur stuffed them with pimentos. Starting a whole new twist to this little morsel, olives are deliciously stuffed with almond slivers, hazelnuts, anchovies, hot peppers and miniature onions. Stuffing olives is actually a true science and called condimentology but this time consuming hands on activity is coming to a serious halt. Only eighteen olives can be stuffed manually a minute totaling about 8,640 olives a day. Definitely having an advantage over a human, a timesaving machine is able to stuff eighteen hundred olives every minute.
