Last Friday, after contemplating the age-old process of preparing dried beans for human consumption, I remembered another ancient food craft lurking in my past: curing fresh olives.
Olive curing dates back at least to ancient Greece, and probably further than that. I do not know how long people have been curing and eating olives, which are unpalatably bitter when picked fresh from the tree. But if you’ll recall, Ali Baba hid from the thieves in an olive jar, so presumably this is a process that stretches back to our remote ancestors.
First, you’ll need access to a bearing olive tree. In the United States, these grow mostly in the Southwest, and even here, states such as my own have banned flowering olives, because their pollen is highly allergenic. (Notice that they haven’t outlawed the ponderosa pine, whose extremely irritating pollen drifts from logging country to afflict legions of sufferers-money crops get a pass.) Nevertheless, olive trees are very long-lived, and so if you look around, you’ll probably find an old one in a neighbor’s yard or on public property.
Most people are thrilled to have you pick their olive trees, for they regard the fruit as nothing but a nuisance. Tant pis pour eux, say we!
This recipe calls for ripe olives. So pick the ones that are still on the tree-DO NOT use olives that have fallen on the ground! These will introduce mildew. Choose olives that are cherry red to purple. Dead black ones make a mushy product. To avoid bruising, drop them into a container of water.
Wash the olives and make a small slit down to the pit at the blossom end (opposite stem). Cover with water in a nonmetallic container. Glass or crockery is best; plastic will do. Change the water every day for 5 to 6 weeks to leach out bitterness. When ready, they will be rather tasteless but should still have a slight bite.
Now wash the olives again in clear water and layer with table salt, placing them back into the clean nonmetallic container. Each olive should be well sprinkled. Let them stand five to seven days, pouring off collected liquid daily.
At the end of this period, wash the olives again.
Put them into clean lidded jars. Add your choice of spices (see below) and cover with this pickling solution: 4 Tbsp. salt, 2/3 cup vinegar laced (if desired) with lemon or lime juice, and bottled water to make one quart. Do not use home-made wine vinegar, since its level of acidity is not constant.
Leave an inch or more of headroom in each jar, with all the olives submerged in pickling solution. Add about 1/2 inch of olive oil. If your jar narrows at the top, olive oil should cover the wider part below.
For seasoning, use your spice shelf and your imagination. Combine or use separately garlic, celery seed, dried onion, rosemary, oregano, dill, etc. You can substitute the juice from a jar of dill pickles for all or part of the water.
Jane Reinl’s “Mother India” Olives
To a quart of pickling solution, add 1 tsp. curry powder, 2 tsp. minced dried onion, and 1/2 to 1 tsp. crushed red pepper.
Garlic Dill Olives
To a quart of pickling solution, add 2 Tbsp dried dill and a half-dozen cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced lengthwise.
Fennel Olives
Pulverize a tablespoon or two of fennel seeds in a mortar, an old coffee grinder, or the blender (don’t reduce them to powder-just break them up). Add the pulverized fennel to a quart of pickling solution. If desired, add chopped leaves from a fresh anise bulb.
If you would like to flavor commercially prepared olives with these spices, pour off the liquid and drown the olives in olive oil. Then add the spice combination, experimenting with the flavor until you arrive at the amounts that suit your taste.