So.... Olives.  In the US we generally think of Olives as little black things that come in cans, or green things with little red pimento pieces floated with a toothpick in a Martini.  Not much thought had ever been given by me to the process that converts the little fruits into Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

You've already seen us having incredible dinners with our friends Luke and Bridgette from Belgium in their farmhouse near Cortona.  We were on our way to help them pick their olive trees as the harvest had just started a few days before.

Their farmhouse is just around the corner from us, but it takes a good 15 minutes or so on a very rutty road to get to their house.



Whoever comes and visits is greeted by their ferocious watchdogs.  Ok, maybe not ferocious, but they at least raise an alarm!





Their farmhouse used to be a defense tower on the hill for Cortona. They have 1500 olive trees on their land.  All picked by hand - well, the ones they can get to that is. 

You can see in the picture in the front the stainless steel cans used to hold the olive oil as it comes out of the press (more on that in a later post) and behind that some of the plastic crates full of olives that have been picked.  Each one of those plastic crates holds about 20 kilos, which is about 45 lbs.  Also you can see what looks like a cane... which is exactly what it is.  They use that to bend down the branches that are too high to reach.



I had gone to help once or twice before luring Tania out there with me.  It's a good thing I was able to drag her out there, because otherwise this post wouldn't have happened... I'm not quite the documenter that she is.

It turned out to be a beautiful day, if a bit too sunny and warm for my tastes, but Tania loved it.



So, we grabbed a rope, tied it around our waist and got to work. 

Some of the olives are pretty hard to reach.  The upper ones involve a lot of standing on your toes, reaching for the sky and trying to bend down the more pliable branches.



Yeah, I know... it doesn't look like much.  They say on average the normal person picks about one crate a day... 20 kilos.

Getting there!  Only 1300 trees to go!





Tania taking the easy way out.  Ok, I admit it... I would take every opportunity to do the same thing.  As Luke was going along and picking, he would evaluate the pruning situation of the trees and hack off limbs that he thought shouldn't be there.  Technically, they say that doing it at that time of the year isn't the best thing, but Luke had a point.  If he didn't do it then, it would never get done, there were just too many trees and not enough trimmers.

So, when he would hack one off with olives, BONUS!  One of us would get the easy-sit-down-pick-on-your-butt job.



Really, it was a horrible day.  You would have hated it.  Honest.



You can see on the right hand side of this picture one of the retaining walls built from stone that terraces Luke and Bridgette's property.  The entire area that had olive trees had these kinds of walls up that kept the land reasonably flat even though it was quite a steep hillside.  I can't imagine the effort required to put all that together.

On the other hand, maybe I can.  Anyone who knows my Dad can attest to this.



Yup, horrible day.





You can see here what I was talking about with the clusters of olives... you just run your hand down the branch popping off all the olives into your hand and then putting them in the basket.  Kinda satisfying when you get one like this... makes up for all the scratching and reaching of the others.  Oh, and the view isn't too bad either.



The trees are 100's of years old and quite a few of them had been hit by frost or fire so the middle of the trunks were gutted.  When this happens, they just pick one of the shoots from the side of the stump and train it up... Voila!  The tree lives again.



I don't know how much you know about how Olives are harvested, but before this experience I didn't really know much except that I had heard that they used nets.  Luke explained it to me.  There are three ways:  In some places they use machines to shake the trees which then drop the olives onto nets.  Other places they use rakes to drag the olives off of the trees, drop them onto the nets and then they collect them together.



But, the original way to harvest olives is by hand.  Grabbing each olive, plucking it from the tree and then putting it in your basket that is hung off of a rope that is tied around your waist.  One by one.  Which is what we did.



So it's about 1:30pm and we headed back to the house for lunch, carrying our hard work back in the crates and carefully putting it on the stack, covering it so that no cats would get into it.



You'll notice we added a few crates to the growing pile.  Every few days they would take the 300 kilos (660 lbs to those stateside) or so of olives and go to the mill with them.



Luke and Bridgette's house has a rustic charm to it.  On their front porch they have fruits, squash, and nuts, most of it from their own gardens or trees on their property.  Seriously, they have been some of the best walnuts I have had.



And thus the stage was set for lunch, under the warm October Tuscan sun.



And this is what we had for lunch.  I can't say this was my favorite thing that I've ever had at Luke and Bridgette's house but it wasn't too bad either.  It was blood sausage served alongside something very much like chunky applesauce that was made from Quince that they grew on their property.  One of Quince sauces was sweet and one of them sour and very good.





And of course you can't finish off a meal in Italy without cafe.  Illy being my first choice, of course!



So we went back to the olive terraces, I have no idea why Tania wanted me to pose with this, but here it is.



Another shot of the hillside near Cortona.



You can see even from the color that we've run across several varieties already.



So, back to the harvesting methods.  I already explained that there are three main methods: machine, rake and by hand.  Why not use the easier, quicker machine or rake methods to harvest the olives?

Sure, the machine and rake are much faster to harvest the olives, but there are some problems with those methods.  Many more leaves get into the olives when they get harvested, which changes the taste of the oil as some of those leaves make it through to the oil press. 

Also, olives bruise with every bounce, just like apples do.  What separates the men from the boys... the GREAT olive oil from the ordinary can be boiled down to a few things: the quality of the fruit, the climate/land and the variety of the olives.  With each bruise the quality of the fruit declines and you get a more acidic oil, which among other things causes the oil to not last as long, and its quality declines quicker.  Also, the machines and raking damages the wood of the tree, making it more susceptible to disease and hurting the health of the tree for the coming years.



So, we picked our last basket and headed back to the house...



Tonight was going to be a great feast.  First the oak had to be burned down to coals to cook the Tuscan steaks.

Along with two different salads, both from their garden.  Nothing tastes as good as tomatoes fresh off the vine.  Quite a lot of the salad greens we've had over Bridgette and Luke's have been wild, picked from their property.  It seems to infuse more flavors into the salads and lend a wild herbalness into the salads.

Tania decided this was a good time to go make some new friends.  They have 4 donkeys that they keep on the property with the olive trees.  First of all, Bridgette loves donkeys, so that is one reason.  But also, they keep down the weeds and the scrub that grows with the olive trees along with fertilizing the trees with their dung.

I know this sounds crazy, but even with the quantity of olive trees that Luke and Bridgette have they don't own a single tractor.  While other people are compacting the earth with their tractors so they can keep down the weeds and spread fertilizer Luke and Bridgette has the donkeys do some of the work for them.





Well, this is a picture of Tania's plate... she always likes steaks that have just in the past few seconds stopped moooing.  But you get the idea... it was VERY good.



Of course, one of the things I ALWAYS like is good conversation and banter.  Luke is always engaging to talk to because he is an intellectual and sticks by his guns.  He won't just give in because it is easier to do so.  So, I always love the conversations at their house.  That is, when I can understand them.  I would say about 50% of the time what is said is in a language I can understand, and about 50% of the time I have no idea what is being said.

Tonight would be no different.  Quite a few of the people there spoke French (I think everyone except Tania and I) so a decent amount of the conversation was in French, but no-where near the amount when I was the only English speaker there.  Maybe after I master Italian I'll have to tackle French.  Yeah, like when I'm 85.



After we finished there we drove home still stuffed with delicious food and slightly physically tired from picking olives all day, but refreshed with having had an experience that wasn't just sitting in front of a computer or TV and having expanded our horizons a bit.

Comments

Written by Debra on 2005-12-04 18:09:33 Hi Tania and Keith,  LOVED the olive harvest photos and blog-- well written, beautifully photographed and very interesting!  Amazed at the green color!!    Great job you two!!     Debra

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