Uncooked: All about olives
There are nearly a thousand different varieties of olives on the market, with great differences in taste, color and texture. Over 90 percent of the olive harvest is pressed to oil, the remaining about ten percent come as pickled olives on the market. Olives turn green at first, then purple to black. Some, however, also remain ripe green, "olive green". Or they become coppery.
The shape is round to pointed-oval depending on the variety, and also the size of the olives varies, from raspberry small to plum-sized. The texture of the pulp ranges from very firm to soft. Sometimes the pulp fuses with the stone, sometimes the stone can easily be dissolved out.
Green or black - which olives taste better?
The more mature an olive is harvested, the lower its proportion of bitter substances (alkaloids). Nevertheless, olives are also harvested immature, so green. So that they are edible, you remove their bitter substances by placing in caustic soda and washing several times. Sometimes this procedure is also applied to ripe black olives. Then most olives are preserved in brine, sometimes flavored with herbs or spices.
In Greece, black olives are often salted or fermented without lactic acid treatment. This intensifies the taste. Some black olives are only dried in the sun.
The most famous olive varieties
Due to the great diversity, most olives are offered without a name, but some are known as a quality feature.
- Queen: This variety has very large fruits, they are nice juicy and fresh.
- Manzanilla: The olive comes from Spain, is green, quite small and medium hard. It has a tart flavor and is offered pure or stuffed (eg with peppers or anchovies).
- Kalamata: The olives are black, quite large and come from the area around Kalamata in Greece. They are very aromatic, soft and have a lot of pulp.
- Niçoise: The namesake of the famous salad are very small, shimmering purple to black and come from France. They have little pulp, but are very aromatic and decorative.
Depending on the quality, 100 g of olives cost between 60 cents to 3 euros.
Tip: This is how you recognize "real" black olives
If you buy black olives, you should look at the label: If iron gluconate is listed as an ingredient, then green olives have been dyed black.
