Our own olives

 

This year the olive trees around the house in Arizona had ripe fruit on them.  So Polly and I decided to harvest and try 'curing' the olives. Olives need to be cured before they are palatable. I did this once before years ago and made passable olives by soaking them in salt water for a couple of months or so.  This year Polly and I decided to actually read up on how to do it.

But first we talked to the pool maintenance man.  He dropped by to check on the pool while we were collecting olives.  On the off chance that he knew something about olives I asked him if he knew anything.  And he did!  His family had harvested and cured olives in Southern California.  He also told us about a 'quick' cure method.  Basically you boil the olives in salt water for 15 minutes, pour out the salt water, and then soak them in vinegar for 4 hours.  

So we did this - and after soaking in vinegar I poured off the vinegar and added olive oil.  The olives end up too soft and still very bitter.  But I noticed that after a couple of days they did taste better and that some of the olives tasted more palatable than the others.  Anyway, they were not so bad that I did not eat them.  So there was hope.  

Thus when it came time to leave Polly and I decided to harvest a bunch to cure on our own at home. We both picked a variety of olives and kept the varieties separate.  Tiny ones, big fat ones, unripe green ones.  I filled one Nalgene with smallish ones and a few unripe ones, another with only large ripe ones, and finally half of a third with a tiny 'Nicoise' like variety and some other little olives.

Here on Kodiak I have been brining them in salt water - with a very high concentration of salt - and pouring off the water every few days.  I have also thought about using the 'salt' method where you basically dry olives in a bed of salt.  

We'll see how it goes - it is going to be a month at least before I try them!

Patrick