Olives Forever

The olive harvest is in full swing.  From soon after dawn on these now lovely warm days I can hear neighbours bellowing at each other as they lay netting and move from tree to tree.  Plumes of smoke rise into the sky and occasionally across my washing as branches are cut down and burnt, usually with the help of a few gallons of petrol.  Fresh green branches do not burn well.

Thicker branches are cut into manageable pieces to be hauled away for next years fires in the wood burning stoves which are now the fashion here.

I could write a post a day for the next month and not exhaust the subject of the olive tree and its drupes (bean/grain/seed).  However, I won't.  I'll be writing more about the olive this time next year and the years after.

I don't particularly like to eat olives, though there are some exceptions.  Green olives, soaked for many, many days to get rid of the bitterness and then pickled in a vinegar solution are sometimes quite agreeable,  Green olives, from a jar on a supermarket shelf, stuffed with almonds, red peppers or anchovies are even more palatable, almost addictive.

On a balmy summer's night at a taverna often the greek salad and even the tzatziki will be adorned by an olive or two.  I often  eat the decor and find it pleasing.   I can imagine the olive in a glass of martini would please me as well.  No stone for a start.

What I don't like are black olives preserved in coarse salt.  They can be mouth puckering dry or bitter and parch the roof of the mouth in an unpleasant manner.    I also don't particularly like olives in cooking though there are as usual a few exceptions.  The olive flavour takes over and smothers any other tastes, especially spaghetti sauces with chopped olives.

Olive bread can be tasty.  Tapenade (olive paste) is nice in small quantities and on the right bread.  What I like most are kalamari with chopped olives. This is a recipe given to me by the greek mother of a friend of ours when we lived in Crete.  An authentic greek recipe from a traditional greek Mama, Kyria Niki.

You can use either fresh or frozen squid or even squid/kalamari from a tin.  Now and again we use a tin of kalamari for a quick ouzo-meze with a squeeze of lemon juice and some olive oil.

Kalamari/squid
lots of olive oil, maybe a wine glass
a handful of stoned olives (black or green), chopped
2 chopped onions
1 clove garlic, chopped
tomatoes, pureed, canned
1/2 cup of wine
chopped dill or maratho*, lots of it

Put the oil, chopped onions , garlic and kalamari, cut into rings, into a pot and fry gently till softened.    About 10 minutes.  Add the half cup of wine ( red or white), pureed tomatoes, olives and chopped dill.  Simmer till everything is soft and the sauce has come together in tasty velvetness.

*maratho is a type of dill.  After looking it up on the net it appears that it is the leafy, liquoricey, leaf of the finokio bulb.  In fact after opening half a dozen 'windows' I realised it is fennel.  Finokio is the greek name.  Down in Crete we found that the Cretans preferred fennel to dill.  There is only a slight difference in flavour.

Eat, drink and be merry