La Vita Le Marche

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Olives

Pick and Bottle Any variety - Collect olives by hand in a clean plastic bucket to prevent bruising. Day 1 Wash in running water. Add boiling hot water and allow to soak for 24 hours. Day 2 Pour off cold water add more boiling water Day 3 Pour off cold water add more boiling water Day 4 Pour off cold water. Place the olives into clean jars. add a mixture of brine and white (or any other type) vinegar in the proportions of 3 to 1 by volume Brine = 10%w/v salt in water that is 100grams/litre of final solution Fill jars well and add a layer of olive oil.

Picking: The olives are usually ripe and ready to pick from November into January. The minimum wieght for pressing is 100 liters. One white olive sack = approx 5 liters. You must book your pressing time with the local press. Pick carefully into clean buckets so as not to bruise the olives. Try not to include leaves or twigs. Yoou must pick the crop  quick to prevent the olives going bad. Its a cumbersome task and involves alot of man hours . Its common to talk friends and family inot helping out, promise a good lunch or a bottle of two. The days are short in le AMrche in winter and it can be very cold so be prepared to work in the dark, have torches to the ready. If you havent enough olives to  make the quota do an olive share with friends and nieghbours.

Our First Olive Pick. We only have 25 trees which dont bear enough fruit to make the 100 litre quota so we  got the call from our friends who have a larger plantation in late november.They were picking and had booked the press for the next evening. With a certain amount of trepidation we scurried off  to our local hard ware shop, bought the white sacks for transport and two large white buckets. We were lucky, the weather was fine, as we trundled into our meadow armed with a ladder, buckets, water, dogs and our portable CD player at 6.00 am. Feeling slightly self concious as our farming neighbour looked on while tending his flock of sheep we began. To the dulcet tones of Stephen Fry narrating the 4 th Harry Potter book on audio DVD, which must have sounded strange to our Italian nieghbours, the adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione wafting over the Le Marche hills, we began to pick. And Pick. And Pick. We had heard tales of all night picking sessions and as the day warmed into another November Scorcher we began to wane. Lugging the full buckets up our steep meadow was the tester. W e stopped for a picnic lunch of prosciutto, bread and pecorino , we avaoided olives that day, revived by a glass or two of Verdiccio and a snooze under the shade of a very large fig tree we set to and completed our task well before sunset. Our 25 trees yielded 10 litres of  pea soup green, unctious, thick oil which tasted fresh and green  and heavenly. Worth every moment of toil and every laceration. We now completely understand why the price of best quality olive oil is so high, any thing less would be a sin.

Articles and Vital Information: www.knowital.com    Article on olives: Pick and Press

Make sure : Ingredients are dry before adding to oil. Flavoured Oils: My favourite thing with a light olive oil, not virgin or first pressed is to pour oil into lire grolsch style bottles and flavour the oil to use  to cook with, marinade and dress with. Garlic and Rosemary: Rosemary form the garden. Blanched and Dry thoroughly. Crush a whole bulb of garlic, just slightly squash each clove 9 big and juicy one, with the flat of a kitchen knife. Chuck the rosemary stalks and garlic into a clean bottle and fill with light olive oil. give a good shake. Leave for more than 5 days. Keep sealed when not using. Top up as you go. Lovely on any grilled , barbecued meats, especially lamb. Salad leaves. Potato salad. Spinach steamed. Chili Oil: Just chop large red chili in half , put in bottle with more red chili flakes, pour in oil, shake and top up as you go. Keep sealed. Good on pizzas, bread, grilled meats, marinades, fry with potatos and chorizo, on steamed or stir fried green spring vegetables, young broad beans, stir fried kale. Garlic Oil: Add sun dried cloves into oil.

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One of the joys of living in Italy is possessing your own olive grove and
producing your own home grown Olive Oil.

This section is dedicated to All Things Olive.

Information on growing, Picking , pressing and Bottling for those lucky
enough to own their own trees.

Recipes, Suppliers, Stories and history and Advise.

Le Marche oil is thick, green tasting and a lovely pea soup colour.

Le Marche oil is thick, green tasting and a lovely pea soup
colour.
The Huge green olives from Ascoli Piceno region are the
most sought after, not for pressing but for eating and making
into Olive Ascolo , a luscious little morsel comprising of an
ascolo olive stone out stuffed with  well seasoned pork mince
coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. Delicious with lemon
wedges and a chilled glass of Falario, the local wine of
Ascolo.
See Recipe Page.

Industrial Grades
The grades of oil extracted from the olive fruit
can be classified as:

Virgin means the oil was produced by the use of
physical means and no chemical treatment. The
term virgin oil referring to production is different
from Virgin Oil on a retail label (see next section).
Refined means that the oil has been chemically
treated to neutralize strong tastes (characterized
as defects) and neutralize the acid content (free
fatty acids). Refined oil is commonly regarded as
lower quality than virgin oil; the retail labels
extra-virgin olive oil and virgin olive oil cannot
contain any refined oil.
Pomace olive oil means oil extracted from the
pomace using chemical solvents—mostly
hexane—and by heat.
Quantitative analysis can determine the oil's
acidity, defined as the percent, measured by
weight, of free oleic acid it contains. This is a
measure of the oil's chemical degradation; as the
oil degrades, more fatty acids are freed from the
glycerides, increasing the level of free acidity and
thereby increasing rancidity. Another measure of
the oil's chemical degradation is the organic
peroxide level, which measures the degree to
which the oil is oxidized, another cause of
rancidity.

In order to classify it by taste, olive oil is
subjectively judged by a panel of professional
tasters in a blind taste test. This is also called its
organoleptic quality.




Extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) comes from cold
pressing of the olives, contains no more than
0.8% acidity, and is judged to have a superior
taste. Extra-virgin and virgin olive oil may not
contain refined oil.
Virgin olive oil has an acidity less than 2%, and is
judged to have a good taste.
Pure olive oil. Oils labeled as Pure olive oil or
Olive oil are usually a blend of refined and virgin
or extra-virgin oil.
Olive oil is a blend of virgin oil and refined oil, of
no more than 1.5% acidity. It commonly lacks a
strong flavor.
Olive-pomace oil is a blend of refined pomace
olive oil and possibly some virgin oil. It is fit for
consumption, but may not be described simply as
olive oil. Olive-pomace oil is rarely sold at retail;
it is often used for certain kinds of cooking in
restaurants.