Olives

[friendsinthesky]

I've been buying olives marinated in olive oil and mixed herbs and spices. BUT, are olives naturally salty?

[dmt head]

Yes was reading a tomatoe sauce recipe today strangely enough and it said go easy on the salt as olives are salty.

[limelady]

No.

Olives are not naturally salty. They are in fact as bitter as gall! :eek:

Salt (and heaps of it) is used in a brining or "curing" process which takes weeks. The salt causes the bitterness to leach out into the salty water which is replaced every few days until no more bitterness can be tasted in the olives.

Without going though this rather lengthy process, olives are virtually inedible (no bird or insect will eat them - they are toxic in their natural form, although the leaves on the trees can be attacked by pests), so all commercially purchased olives have already been brined and are of course still quite salty, whether purchased in olive oil or a light brining solution.

We have young olive trees on our lime orchard, and they recently produced their first very small crop, so I did a lot of experimenting to see what I could do with them. They all have to be brined first. The best recipe I came up with was a black olive pate (with spices), which was really nice on crackers with cheese. :)

[dmt head]

My mistake,forgot you mentioned the natural part sorry. Funny I was reading that today though, must be today I learn about olives! lol

[friendsinthesky]

Thanks all and Lime I was hoping you'd answer. Can you tell me what salt they use to brine. Also, do you know whether or not organic olives are brined in rock or sea salt.

[accuracy]

Funny enough, i always order a pizza with olives, but never eat them.

[deca]

accuracy dig the T shirt man

People just don`t realize what damage Haarp etc and similar technology's are doing to this planet.

[limelady]

Thanks all and Lime I was hoping you'd answer. Can you tell me what salt they use to brine. Also, do you know whether or not organic olives are brined in rock or sea salt.

Oh cripes.....not sure I can supply all the answers here. But I'm betting most of the commercial processing places would use the cheapest form of salt available for brining, because they need so much. I'd imagine its just a processed salt purchased in bulk at wholesale rates....as cheaply as they can get it.

As for organic olives, again I can't be sure....but if chemicals are used in processing commercial salt (not sure about that), then I'd guess they'd have to use a more natural salt like sea salt to be able to claim their product is organic.

Interesting questions I hadn't thought about myself because when our olives start to crop properly (another few years yet), we're planning to send them off for processing into organic cold-pressed virgin olive oil.

[friendsinthesky]

Thanks lime, I think I'd better cut back (I'm not keen on refined salted products) I'll look for organic.

..but it's interesting that my marinated olives mentions nothing of salt or brine. Something they forget to tell us.

[steevo]

I love olives NOW AND AGAIN. The saltiness does put me off a little.

LimeLady, are your limes sweet ?

[limelady]

I love olives NOW AND AGAIN. The saltiness does put me off a little.

LimeLady, are your limes sweet ?

Hi steevo.....our limes are sweeter than a lemon, but still very tangy......enough to make you pucker!!! :p

If you make a drink with concentrated lime juice, you only need a small amount of honey to sweeten it up....a lot less than you might need for a lemon drink.

I am very fond of just straight chilled spring water with a squeeze of lime juice in it.....along with eating copious volumes of watermelons (full of micro-nutrients) drinking 'lime water' seems to help me cope with the heat/humidity here. We sweat out a lot of nutrients in this climate!

[steevo]

Hi steevo.....our limes are sweeter than a lemon, but still very tangy......enough to make you pucker!!! :p

If you make a drink with concentrated lime juice, you only need a small amount of honey to sweeten it up....a lot less than you might need for a lemon drink.

I am very fond of just straight chilled spring water with a squeeze of lime juice in it.....along with eating copious volumes of watermelons (full of micro-nutrients) drinking 'lime water' seems to help me cope with the heat/humidity here. We sweat out a lot of nutrients in this climate!

When I was over there in Aussie, I had some small limes from someone's garden and the limes were actually sweet! You could eat them cut up in to slices along with your dinner, as a sort of a side dish. They were beautiful. The lemons were also not THAT bitter, and even slightly sweet.
The lemons and limes over here make your face screw right up when you suck on them (lemons and limes I mean). But they do have their uses in cooking though and as accompaniments to drinks. I like to squeeze a lemon over pork chops as a condiment after they have been cooked, they take away that pig taste lol.

[pri01]

Back to the point of the thread. I absolutely love olives. I am British so Olives are not naturaly my native food. However, I was served olives in warmed olive oil at an event in my recent experience in Spain and I was absolutely gobsmacked at the sensations I experienced. How fantastic the taste?:)

[limelady]

You should try olives that have been washed then stored in a lime and black pepper brine for a week.......SENSATIONAL! :D

[friendsinthesky]

You should try olives that have been washed then stored in a lime and black pepper brine for a week.......SENSATIONAL! :D

Oh, I want to try.

I just had some of me marinated olives, but I going out shortly to find organic olives and compare.