It’s the days of olives. And the beginning of the olive season where you would hardly miss people on Crete doing the harvest all day long for possibly continued weeks, or even months if with such a huge land. The experience can be exciting when you are a fresh adventurer, or something less wanted if your family has been involved in collecting olives for generations back. Well, that’s another story… (and by the way worth watching this lovely short movie The Olive Tree Will Always Be There) let’s just come back to the bagful of green olives I picked yesterday with my friend Christina.
You may have come across my previous posts Preparing eating olives: the black guys and Green eating olives conserved with lemon juice, with some ideas on the various ways olives are preserved in Crete. Now I will share the recipe that I probably like the most for both the taste and that you can start enjoying them in just a couple of days.
So you clean the olives, discard any with blemishes, cuts, etc. and wash them in water. As per my friend’s instructions, you would hit the olives one by one with a stone so they open a little. Well, I did not go down to the garden in search of the appropriate stone, as that could have easily ended me doing something else. Instead, I used a shot glass and that worked well too.
As you keep hitting the olives, you will experience some of the oily juice spreading around which is fun and you get a taste of olive oil production… Once the olive hitting is done, you put the olives in a bowl with water. And here we go, done for the day!
Change the water every day, and start testing it after 3-4 days to check the taste. Put salt on it only when it starts to be bitter. It should be ready in about 7-8 days. What is important that the last water has to be kept with adding some lemon juice. My favourite eating olives are full of freshness thanks to the lemon, and because they were happily dancing with the sun, the moon, the wind and even the rain not long ago. The energy captured in the fresh green olives is just amazing!
