A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PICKLED OLIVE.
The pickled olives appear in Europe on all tables as hors d'œuvres, or side dish, as an aperitive condiment; and the culinary art knows how to employ them in a thousand different ways.
In the United States they are found in the French, Italian and Spanish restaurants with a few exceptions, as also on the tables of the wealthy classes who, having traveled abroad, have learned and adopted this most pleasant habit. They are also found quite extensively in the best bar-rooms, where they are offered to consumers with the traditional cracker so as to predispose them to enjoy the drink they are going to imbibe.
They are a great resource for the poorer classes of the old countries, and in the southern regions of Europe they are still one of the principal elements of their sober alimentation. A piece of bread under his arm, a flask of wine and a pocket full of olives, such is the equipment for the noon meal that many laborers carry away with them to the field where they are going to spend the whole day.
The pickling of the olive is a very simple operation. This is the method recommended by Coutance:
"The celebrated olives pickled after the manner of Picholini are submerged in a strong lye rendered more alkaline by an addition of quick lime. After leaving them in it for a certain time, which depends on their size, on the strength of the lye, and which is to be limited to the moment the pulp is penetrated to the pit, they are withdrawn, washed, and kept afterwards in water, to which is added about ten per cent of its weight of salt."
This is the mode given by Du Breuil: "Among the several receipts in use to take away the bitterness of the olive, we will indicate the one which we owe to the brothers Picholini of Saint Chamas, and which is considered the best: The olives are picked from the tree when they have reached their full development, but when they are still green, which is about the middle of September. They are dipped in a strong lye of potash, where they are left until the flesh is penetrated to the kernel. The lye is then replaced by fresh water which is removed twice a day during the first five days; after this they are kept in a strong brine."
In Bernays we find also the following recipe: "The method of preparing picholines in France, consists in putting the olives into a lye made of one part of quick lime to six parts of ashes of young wood sifted. After having left them half a day in this lye, they are taken out of it and put in fresh water, where they are allowed to remain eight days, the water being carefully renewed every twenty-four hours. After this a brine is made of a sufficient quantity of marine salt dissolved in water, to which is added some aromatic plants."
Here is now a process which is mostly the repetition of those I have just given, but which contains a few additional particulars which have come under my observation while pickling olives in Europe as well as here;
In the first place, the strength of the lye in which the olives are to be submerged has to be regulated. To that end I have employed the "American Concentrated Lye," which is found here at all groceries, in a solid state, in one pound boxes. After breaking the tin envelope I dissolve this cake of concentrated lye in a wooden bucket, into which I throw one gallon of hot water. When fully melted I have a lye of 13° to 14° strength, measured by the Beaume's hydrometer, which can be had at such hardware stores as Justinian Caire, of San Francisco, who imports them from Europe. With such a degree of strength the flesh of the olives is penetrated to the kernel in about five hours, which can be easily ascertained by taking one of them every five or ten minutes, after the first four hours, and cutting a slice from it with a pen-knife. The moment the flesh is fully penetrated I draw off the lye and I replace it by fresh water, which I renew in its turn five or six times at intervals of from six to eight hours. This renewal of water has for effect to clear the olives from the taste of the lye. Still, as they retain yet a little bitterness, it is finally removed by placing them for two or three days in a brine prepared on the basis of ten per cent of marine salt. Wild laurel leaves being thrown in this brine, will impart a delicious flavor to the olives, which are then ready for market. Whilst transferring them to bottles or barrels for shipment, these packages should be well filled with a new brine of the same strength.
There are a few other points in connection with this which I consider it important to follow.
1. Pick only from the tree the well developed berries that are perfectly green, and have not commenced yet to turn to a purple color. This can be done here in September, or the very latest, early in October. By waiting later they would be spotted by the oil forming in them, and would be unfit for the trade, though just as good for private consumption.
2. The pickling operations should be done only in wooden vessels, and rubber gloves should be used when the hands have to come in contact with the lye.
3. The lye should be left to settle as completely as possible before covering the olives with it, otherwise the strength of its sediment would spot many of them.
4. The olives should be covered with sacks or straw, with stones above, in order to keep the top ones from floating, in which case they would turn black.
5. The vessels should be so disposed as to allow the lye to be drawn off rapidly and completely, otherwise by too long a contact with this strong lye, some of the olives would be spotted or would turn soft.
While operating on large quantities, the wooden troughs should be disposed in such a manner that the same lye can be used in turn for all the olives that are to be pickled, provided, however, it is drawn every time in a separate trough where its strength can be regulated by a slight addition of fresh concentrated lye of a higher degree, and care taken that it settles before using it again.
It can thus be seen that the pickling of the olive is a very simple, very rapid, and very cheap operation. The more so, as the moderate expense of making the lye, of which a small quantity covers great many pounds of olives, can be brought down nearly to nothing by its use, or its sale; as a winter tree wash, for it happens to be the very best preparation that can be used to that effect for ridding fruit trees of the numerous insects that live or deposit their eggs on them.
We can thus safely claim that nothing, or next to nothing is lost in the transformation of the product of the olive tree into a trade article.