{"id":7885,"date":"2012-08-28T13:14:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T20:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/burgersdogspizza.com\/?p=7885"},"modified":"2012-08-28T13:14:30","modified_gmt":"2012-08-28T20:14:30","slug":"curing-olives-home-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/?p=7885","title":{"rendered":"Curing Olives at Home – Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Olives arrived from the nice folks at Penna<\/a>. \u00a0 Wonder as many times as \u00a0I have stopped in the adjacent city to them, to purchase “finished” olives, I haven’t stopped in to see the Pennas? \u00a0I’ll have to correct that next trip down I-5!<\/p>\n

Years ago, living in Los Angeles, I had an olive tree in the back yard, and all it meant to me at the time (even tho I have loved olives since I was a sprout), was one big mess in the yard every fall. \u00a0I never even thought of trying to cure them at home until a couple years ago, had a notion, ordered 10 lbs from Penna, and away we went. \u00a0Problem? \u00a010 lbs wasn’t nearly enough, people would have them \u00a0at our dinner parties and demand to take them home – so we gave a lot away.<\/p>\n

I think probably 20-30 lbs is the right amount for an olive loving household.<\/p>\n

Olives off the tree are inedible. \u00a0Very bitter. \u00a0Rumor has it, one day a fair maiden was walking along the sea, and noticed that a bunch of olives had fallen into a tide pool. \u00a0Desperately hungry, she nibbled a few – and they were delicious!<\/p>\n

And thus (so the story goes) olive curing began. \u00a0Today, large commercial operations cure olive with a lye solution, in order to speed up the process of leaching out the bitterness, but at home, I used the old-timey way, with either a fresh water bath for a couple of weeks, or a brine solution for a month or more.<\/p>\n

One cracks the flesh of the fruit with a hammer or knife, to expedite the bitterness exiting during the bath\/brine process.<\/p>\n

Then into the drink they go. \u00a0Penna has some curing methods online<\/a> you might try.<\/p>\n

I’ll keep you posted here, on how my process goes. \u00a0I know this – with only 2 1\/2 pounds in the drink, they won’t last long at our house!<\/p>\n

Here’s a short video of the start of the process, and some fotos follow below.<\/p>\n