I can remember when I younger that I didn’t like olives at all. I really disliked the taste, but I guess it is with olives just as with wine… many people have to learn to appreciate them.
But as time passes by, new people come into your life and they bring new things with them along. And so it happened with Marion, she brought olives into my life (sounds dramatic, but that is how it is). At first I didn’t want to know anything about olives, but over time I started to use them when I prepared food. And now, I really love them.
During our holiday on Lesbos (or Lésvos are they people living there call their island) I learned a lot about olive trees, olives and olive oil…
First of all there many olive trees on Lésvos, around 11 million of them. Nowhere have people struggled so intently to cultivate the olive tree; and nowhere has the olive tree repaid this struggle so fully as in Lésvos. Some people say that the best Greek olive is the Kalamata. I dare to disagree with that.
On Lésvos you will find the Kolovi olive. Sure, the Kolovi olive is smaller and maybe looks a bit less as the Kalamata olive. But in taste the Kolovi olive beats all. Its taste is intense, strong and full. For me it is the best olive I have ever tasted and I prefer to use this olive in the food I prepare (or to eat them just as they are).
On the picture above the Kolovi olive, to the right the normal olive and to the left the dried ones. The olives I buy are with pits, because I learned that olives with the pit removed lose their taste. And it is very easy to remove a pit from an olive.
I also didn’t know that it takes at least 9 months for olives become eatable. During time they’re stored in barrels with water and sea salt (to use lye on olives is forbidden in Greece).
Fact: Green olives are really unripe olives. The darker black/blue one are the ripe olives.
And here the bad news: Rather often black olives are artificial colored. These “fake” black olives can easily be recognized by their unnatural solid black color – it looks like they’re stained with shoe polish. You’re warned!
Anyway, olives are great. And specially the Kolovi olive is truly my favorite.
Next year our friend Mel from Lesbos will take us to one of the oldest olive tree orchard on Lésvos. I am really looking forward to that.