They contain much Oil, Phlegm, and essential Salt.
They agree in cold Weather with any Sort of Age and Constitution, provided they are good, and well preserv’d.”
Remarks
“Olives are oblong or oval and juicy Fruits, larger or smaller, according to the Country they grow in: Care must be taken to gather them before they are ripe, and then they have a harsh bitter Taste not to be endured, because their salts are clogg’d and swallow’d up by the earthy and gross Parts.
Olives are preserv’d with Water and Salt, and then they become pleasing to the Taste; the Reason is, because the Liquor of Brine causes a little Fermentation in the Olives, by the Help thereof the Salts free themselves by degrees of the earthy Parts that do retain them; and afterwards with more Lightness and Delicacy prick the nervous Fibres of the Tongue.
“The Brine produces another good Effect in the Olives; for by its saline Parts it stops up the Pores of this Fruit, and prevents the Air from ent’ring too much into it, and thereby cause a considerable Fermentation therein, which destroys the Fruit, and soon rots them.
Olives well preserv’d create an Appetite, by gently pricking the Sides of the Stomach, not only by their acid Salts, but also by those communicated to them by the Pickle. They also bind up and fortify the Stomach by their earthy Parts, which swallow up the over-abounding Moistures that relax the Fibres of that Part.
The Picholines are Olives cut in several Places, and then steep’d in Pickle; they are sooner in a Condition to be eaten than others, because that by the Help of the Incision made in them, the Brine or Pickle is sooner and more effectually communicated to their whole Substance.
Oil of Olives is much us’d in Ailments; it’s of a qualifying, mollifying, anodine, dissolving and detersive Nature, good for the Cholic and Bloody-flux, and is prepar’d in this Manner.
They get together in November or December, a great Quantity of full ripe Olives, and lay them by for a Time in some Corner of the House, where they are heated, and thereby become purified of their watry Moisture; then they grind them in a Mill, and put them into Rush or Palm Frails, plac’d on the Top of one another Pressways, and the first Oil that comes from them, is called Virgin’s Oil.