[Sca-cooks] Olives

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Mon, 21 Dec 2009, Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
>
> On Dec 21, 2009, at 2:06 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:
>
>> Do you mean green olives as compared to the black ones? Or green as 
>> opposed to ripe olives. I thought the difference between black and 
>> green olives was due to different processing.
>
> Yes and no, mostly no. Canned black olives aren't ripe, or at least not 
> naturally so; they pretty much need to be unripe in order to be firm 
> enough to withstand the mechanical pitting process.
>
> However, olives can indeed ripen naturally on the tree (they still need 
> some processing, generally).
>
>> Does extracting olive oil not require ripe olives?
>
> No, usually it comes from green olives, it's my understanding. At least 
> that is what I STR Cato saying on the subject. I think it's supposed to 
> have a longer shelf-life, and possibly a better flavor, longer, if made 
> that way.
>
> Adamantius
>

On the episode* of "Dirty Jobs" that involved a small olive oil producer, 
almost all of the olives they harvested and processed into oil were green. 
IIRC the oil guy said something about "this is the way it's done" without 
explaining why they press green olives instead of ripe olives.


*one of only about six I have actually seen


Margaret FitzWilliam