Olive Info

History of olives

Olives and olive trees have a long history. Their exact origins are unknown, however olives were found in Ancient Egyptian Tombs as food for the Pharaoh in the afterlife. Researchers debate that olives have been around for 5000-6000 years. Some say olive trees originated in countries by the eastern Mediterranean Sea and adjacent countries of Asia Minor, India, Africa and Europe, while others argue that Syria and Iran were the original sites of olive cultivation, and yet others say that Palestine and Lebanon were the first colonies to cultivate olive trees.

Olives, olive oil and olive trees have a rich biblical history which is found in the flight of the dove with the olive branch in the Bible’s first book – Genesis, and in the Book of Exodus where Moses is instructed on how to make an anointing oil of spices and olive oil.

Olive trees are small, slow-growing evergreen trees which have long life-spans of up to ten centuries. Trees can be regenerated from their long tap roots and new trees can be grown from existing root systems.

Olives are “drupes” also known as “stone fruit” as are apricots, cherries, plums etc… with one major difference: An olive’s chemical composition has a relatively low concentration of sugars, and has a characteristic strong bitter taste which is due to the presence of the glucoside – oleuropein – which occurs only in olives!!

All olives are green at first and slowly ripen changing colour until they are fully ripe and have turned black.

Green unripe olives are inedible unless they are treated to remove their bitter glucosides. For centuries, olive growers treating their own olives have simply washed the olives everyday in fresh water for ten days and then totally immersed them in brine. In contrast, fully ripe black olives only need washing and preserving in brine or dry salt.

Recipes for curing and preserving olives stem from pre-biblical times and were domestically based and small –scale in nature using recipes incorporating various herbs, spices and other aromatic ingredients which have been passed on from generation to generation.

Mass production of table olives began only in the last century. In the US in 1899, Frederic Bioletti and G E Colby from the University of California “proved that when properly processed, large-fruited olives were palatable and nutritious”. They also showed how ripe olives - in a weak brine solution heated sufficiently - could be preserved indefinitely packed in hermetically sealed glass. Bioletti then perfected the high-temperature, high-pressure method of canning olives in tins… starting the modern olive industry.¹

In Greece, commercial preparation of olives either in brine or in dry salt began in the early 1930s – although it was not until the 1960s that production of a quality product was consistently achieved.

Spain’s olive commercial production experience, whilst very similar to that of Greece’s, differs in its use of alkaline ashes to remove the olive’s bitter taste and Spain has also adapted the use of sodium hydroxide into its production process of curing its very famous “Spanish” green olives.

These three countries: The United States, Greece and Spain currently comprise the bulk of the modern table olive industry.

Here in Australia, Don Vica takes table olives to a new level of consumption. Don Vica marinates and hand-stuffs the choicest olives using fresh ingredients and quality dried herbs, spices and wine vinegar to produce a premium quality range of delicious table olives – for you to enjoy everyday!

Sources

1. Olive Production Manual, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Publication 3353, (1994) The Regents of the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. pp 1-4
2. Dolamore, Anne, The Essential Olive Oil Companion, (1988) Grub St, LONDON pp 12-21
3. Garrido Fernandez, A., Fernandez Diez, M.J., & Adams, M.R., Table Olives: Production and Processing, (1997) Chapman & Hall, LONDON 
   pp 4-14