- From food to fuel, olives have a storied past
dating back millions of years.
- There are no olives here.
Why olives?
- Because they might be dead people.
- bring out the olives! - No!
(woman screaming)
- We'll learn that's all about and so much more
in this episode of "What am I Even Eating?!"
(upbeat music)
Olive trees can grow up to 40 feet tall,
live for thousands of years, and are related to other plants
such as jasmine, privet and lilac.
Also, what the (bleep) is privet?
Olive trees are the only tree in the, well,
I'm probably gonna say this wrong, Oleaceae family
that produces an edible fruit, so overachievers,
and the Olea europaea is the main species of olive trees.
The word olive comes from the Latin word oliva.
Oliva hails from the pre-Roman word eleiva.
I'm sure I'm mispronouncing all of this.
And that's derived from the classic Greek word elaia,
That word's probably from the same Asian language
as the Armenian word for oil, which is ewi.
I'm sorry. my relatives are gonna be really mad at me.
For many languages, the word oil
comes from the Greek version elaion,
which ain't that different from their word for olive.
That's because until about the 1300s,
the word oil really meant olive oil.
Olives were valued more as a fuel source than a food.
Fossils from the wild olive trees
have been found around Italy and the Mediterranean
that go back over 20 million years,
and around a hundred thousand years ago,
olives were being used by humans in Africa
along the Atlantic coast of Morocco.
We started cultivating them some 7,000 years ago
around the Mediterranean.
As I mentioned, they were really used
for fuel more than food.
Pressed for their oil, they were used in lamps.
Like, think Aladdin.
Olive oil was highly valued and easy to transport
and became an important commodity
traded across the Mediterranean.
As far back as 3,000 BC,
olives were grown commercially on the island of Crete.
Yeah, that far ago.
In fact, grain, grapes, and olives
were the three critical crops of ancient Greece,
and you should hella watch my video
on the history of grapes.
Aside from food and fuel, olives were also ceremonial.
Ancient Olympic victors were crowned with olive branches,
and they were even used as a goodwill gesture
for diplomatic and trade missions.
The oil, used for perfume and even as a sunscreen.
It has an SPF of about eight.
Athletes also coated their bodies in it
before wrestling, which is not the least bit gay.
And if you're thirsty, here's some Turkish oil wrestling.
Just like I said.
The olive plays a key role in Abrahamic religions
such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,
like the dove that brought an olive branch
back to Noah, or the Hanukkah miracle
where a menorah burned for eight nights.
Today, 80% of all harvested olives are pressed for oil,
and the remaining 20%, those are consumed as table olives.
Outside of food, the oil is also used
in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products.
Trees are also harvested for furniture
and the branches for home decor.
95% of all US-grown olives
come from California, no surprise there.
Other US growers include Texas, Georgia, Florida,
Arizona, Oregon, Alabama, and even Hawaii.
Tulare County accounts for 56%
of the Golden State's olive production,
where Sacramento, Glenn and Tehama
and Butte counties make up the other 36%.
The remaining 8% comes from Kings, Kern, Fresno and Madera.
While there are thousands of cultivars, here in California,
table olive growers prefer Manzanillo and Sevillano trees.
Why?
Sevillanos serve as the pollinator
and they help improve those fruit yields.
Olives grown for oil tend to be Arbequina, Ascolano,
Mission, but Manzanillo and Sevillanos are also used.
California olives were first planted in San Diego
at the Mission Basilica San Diego de Acala,
I'm sure I said that wrong, around 1795.
By the 19th century, production was artisanal
with small orchards here and there.
All that changed thanks to a German immigrant
and farmer, Freda Ehmann.
Freda came to California in 1892
and owned a small olive grove
just outside Oroville in Sacramento Valley.
I'm in Sacramento, by the way.
Working with food scientists
from the University of California,
she experimented with different methods
for pickling ripe olives.
At the time, olives could not be successfully preserved
for long-term storage or shipment.
Just didn't work that way.
Assisted by Professor Eugene Hilgard,
she developed a formula that worked
and put California olives on the map.
Table olives are typically planted around 85 trees an acre,
for hand harvesting and for pruning.
Oil olive growers can plant up to 600 trees an acre,
where mechanical pruning and harvesting is used.
Commercial olive trees are typically produced
from root cuttings, and while grafting is not uncommon,
many growers simply use a single cultivar.
Trees begin to fruit by year three
and hit full production by year seven,
and they air are commercially productive for about 40 years.
Trees begin to bud immediately after harvest
around November, growing and developing through the winter
until the flowers bloom come March.
They unfurl even more by June for easier pollination.
Now, the trees are typically pollinated by the wind,
or if it's a self-pollinating tree.
This is usually fine, but remember the Sevillanos?
Remember those, the word I can't ever seem to pronounce.
Cross pollination with a compatible variety
can increase fruit yield up to 7%
and even improve the overall olive.
For this reason, some growers plant
a few alternative varieties in their orchards.
Within six weeks of full bloom, fruit begins to set.
Thank God, right? We want those olives.
Olives grow over the summer, first firm and green,
slowly getting darker and less firm.
Let me explain.
Okay, so as the olives ripen on the tree,
the skin can change from green to a darker color,
then followed by the flesh darkening as well,
so it's a little complicated.
For this reason, there are three categories
of ripe table olives.
You probably know them, but there's green,
which is picked when the olive is full size but green,
no surprise there.
This is also when oil olives are picked.
Semi-ripe olives, when the skin has darkened,
but the flesh has not, and then there's black,
also ripe olives picked at full maturity
when the olive is purple, brown, or black in color.
Olives are harvested starting in September
and through November.
Then it's rinse and repeat.
A single tree can produce around a thousand olives.
For table olives, when hand harvested,
they can't be bruised or damaged,
which is why this is skilled labor.
After being picked, olives must be cured,
for they're too bitter, just like me, right?
Just like me.
So olives are soaked in a lye solution
for seven days to remove the bitterness
and then repeatedly rinsed.
This is the same process that was invented by Freda
and is still used today.
During curing, air can be added to affect the color.
So more air means more change,
more green olives turning black.
Olives are then canned or jarred
in a light brine as they're very low in acid,
and that's how table olives
got from the Mediterranean to California to you.
So how do you store olives?
Well, an unopened can of olives
will last about six months past the best by date.
Once open, they'll keep for about three weeks
in their brine.
If they're packed in oil,
they'll keep for about a month
past the best by date, opened or not.
(upbeat music)