Olive Harvest
Olive Harvest - The cult of extra virgin olive oil.
Depending on who you ask — Greeks, French, Spaniards or Italians — each will say they make the best olive oil. These disagreements even exist between Italians, though the hills stretching from Florence to Lucca are usually considered the finest region for Italian extra virgin olive oil – due to the variety of the olives and the traditional systems to pick up olives from the tree when the olives are right and have not lost their anti-oxidants.
Tuscans like their oil piccante (peppery) – which is mainly obtain with fresh and non-over-matured olives. The more matured are the olives, the more sweet and fatty is the oil – very popular in the South – but the higher is the acidity level and the less healthy is the oil.
Since the olive oil can be produced from different systems - the term Extra Virgin Olive Oil indicates the high standard of quality of the olive oil with acidity levels of less than 1% - which can only be obtained with fresh olives and mechanical squeasing procedures.
Greener fruit produce oil with more antioxidants in the form of polyphenols and a more bitter, peppery oil – perfect for your bruschettas aglio e olio. Mature olives produce oil with less polyphenols - which have an anti-oxidant effect and are a heart-healthy food. However, heating olive oil for cooking destroys them, so the full benefit is really only derived from oils used as dressings and drizzled over finally prepared dishes.
Experts maintain that for optimal extra virgin oil you have a window of one week to get the olives off the tree and to the mill. During last week of October and the first weeks of November – the Italian countryside is populated by Italian families dress up as gipsy with layers of jumpers to fight against weather conditions that are trying to pick and grind their olives at the right moment.
Like vendemmia – is a family feast, with prosciutto, salami, cheese and red wine to warm up from the cold autumn first cold winds and low temperatures.
Growing up I had no experience of the cultivation of olives trees but after we bought a small farmhouse that came with a free olive grove I have been inducted into the cult of olive oil production. We are just heading into our fifth year of production and my mother is already repairing the nets torn during last year’s harvest. Dad is placing bets on how many kilos of olives we’ll pick this year. He always superstitiously underestimates the quantities by a good 200 kilos and complains that if we’d taken more care of then we would have been able to break last year’s record .
Picking the trees involves a laborious process of laying out fine mesh nets under the trees - no mean feat if you consider that the section is a steep set of narrow terraces so the nets need to be cantilevered over the edges with long batons. The most difficult trees were the ones on the slopes since the nets had to be held up on stakes to keep the olives from rolling off.
Picking olives by hand is a little like milking a cow. Just squeeze until the olive falls off the branch. The olives that are plucked from the tree by downward strokes of the branches between the forefinger and thumb. Papa, at the tender age of 69, has first dibs on the longest ladder and provides two weeks of constant worry to my neighbours.
Mamma covers off ground duties including picking from the lower branches, or from branches that have been trimmed, net maintenance and gathering the olives from the nets when each tree is done. She is also in charge of refreshments and prepares fantastic picnic lunches that we eat in the fields stretched out in the warm November sun. I just do what I am told as any ventured opinion is pooh-poohed without hesitation.
The best thing about harvesting olives is that it can’t be done in wet weather. The harvest traditionally begins on All Souls Day - November 1. Often the first days of November, though short have gloriously warm midday periods. Early misty mornings unfold into bright autumn days and we work in short sleeves watched by robins (pettirossi) looking out over the vineyards and chestnut forests below us that turn more gold and russet with each day.
Under the warm autumn sun my parents tell us stories of their childhood picking olives, of roasting bread olives for breakfast on the bonfires in the morning, of how the extra money from harvesting was used to buy new shoes for the winter.
The most traditional way of making olive oil is by grinding olives. First the olives are ground into an olive paste using large millstones. The olive paste generally stays under the stones for 30–40 minutes. After grinding, the olive paste is spread on fibre disks, which are stacked on top of each other, then placed into the press. Pressure is then applied onto the disk to further separate the oil from the paste.
It’s a bit of a bunfight trying to get your olives pressed. At the end of October everyone books a slot at the mill.
The mill workers are sleep deprived but remarkably civil considering. Some mills have huge prosciutto hams, crusty bread, wine, water and coffee on offer to offset the inconvenience of waiting for your turn which can run to 12 hours or more. Vans, three-wheeler Apes, tractors and trucks converge on the mill with crates and sacks of olives to be weighed and queued. The measure is quintale (100 kilograms).
Humour runs high though as people chat about the season and size up each other’s olives. The olives are rated on size, colour, freshness (withered olives are an absolute no no), and how many frasche (twigs and leaves ) have crept into the crates. You can’t trust anyone who tells you your olives are big or belle. The moment of truth though is the moment the oil flows from the press into large aluminum canisters. Last year as our oil flowed smooth from the spout a large dirty finger was inserted into the golden stream and then promptly into the owners toothless mouth (apologies to those to whom we gave oil to last year). Giuseppe, previously unknown to us nodded his approval of the oil and uttered “pizzica!” which means vivacious.