When the bitterness has been removed, the olives are washed, dried lightly, and placed in casks or jars until required. Before being served the olives are soaked in oil.
One style of Greek packing of ripe olives is of special excellence. Sour wine is added to the pickle to accentuate the flavor and the product is packed in oil. The olives are plump, tender, and brilliant, and possess a very rich flavor.
In parts of Southern Europe certain kinds of olives are left on the trees to become very ripe, and are then dried in the sun without any preparation. These are only used locally as they are lacking in the fine flavor of the prepared olive.
In the preparation of the olive, both green and ripe, during all these centuries, there had been no attempt at sterilization. The olive was preserved by partial drying, by the action of salt, and by its spontaneous fermentation in pickle in which certain desirable forms of organisms had the ascendency. With the good fruit thus prepared, there must have been considerable which was spoiled, and yet no illness is known to have resulted.
Though olives have figured so largely in the alimentation of southern Europe, the oil particularly being so important and general a food, the people of northern Europe have not esteemed either to an important extent. With the crude methods in vogue for transporting the oil, and the lack of understanding as to its nature, it is supposed that their apathetic attitude was due to its being received in poor condition.
In England also, though so close to the olive growing districts, the olive has not been used to any considerable extent, judging from its absence from menus and from their cookery. In examining old cookery books it was surprising to find no mention of olives. In Russel’s “Boke of Nurture” and Mrs. Napier’s “Noble Boke off Cookry” the manuscripts dating from the 15th century, there is no mention of olives, though there are condiments and spices from foreign countries used in sauces and other preparations. Neither is there any mention of olives in “The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened” written in the 17th century, though Digby had traveled much and lived on the continent. The earliest mention in 17 cookery books, published in the 17th and 18th centuries is the following, published in 1745, and which is really a translation of a French work by L. Lemery, physician to the King, and member of the Royal Academy. It is interesting in showing the many virtues attributed to olives.
“OF OLIVES”
“You ought to chuse such as are large, pulpy, well preserv’d and tasted, and those that have been cultivated in hot Countries.
They create an Appetite, fortify the Stomach, dissolve and expell the viscous and gross Humours fix’d there, repress Reachings, and are a little nourishing.
They produce no ill Effects, unless they are us’d to excess.