Picking Olives

And getting picky about it.  Westways, the AAA magazine, in an article entitled "Local Flavor" goes into great detail on the subject.  I read it because olives are a favorite mid-afternoon snack along with a chunk of cheese and a cracker or three.  I follow the French habit of serving something salty with an aperitif before dinner.  Remember to set out a little bowl for the pits next to them. 

"Local Flavor" set me straight on a number of interesting facts about olives - they are a fruit (who knew?) and as such need a little body to them.  If your oil tastes excessively bitter, that's a sign the olives are loaded with polyphenols which are an antioxident-rich compound that could help reduce cholesterol levels.  But "Eat an olive; beat a heart attack" is unlikely to catch on 

Even though their containers label them as "green" or "black" there's no such animal.  All olives start out green.  Then they turn red and then deepen to purple and, at the very end, will be a kind of black-purple. 

Many of the olives grown in California are interchangeable with Mediterranean olives in Greece, Italy and Spain. 

Greek olives are small ovals with a distinctive pointy end.  Drizze it over a salad of arugula and ripe tomatoes (Romas work well.)

Puglia region of Italy.  Medium-sized, egg-shaped and liable to ripen faster than Tuscan olives.  (If that isn't splitting hairs, I don't know what would be) - use it on boiled shrimp, corn on the cob (!) or add garlic and tomatoes and have yourself a nice bruschetta.

Spanish olives are small, symmetrical and ripen early.  Use them in mashed potatoes (! again) or make a sauce of olive oil, garlic, capers and anchovies to spoon over bread. 

Giuliani's, an Italian deli sells a fat, pale green olive - Calvecchi? that I love.  They are plump, meaty and the color - pale green - is very inviting.  Even if you can't pronounce the name, all you have to do is run your gaze along the piles of olives behind the display case window and their pale green color will pop out at you almost if they were shouting, "Boo!"