" You know half the people are not coming to the party tomorrow because the are going olive harvesting" An event organizer confided in me yesterday.
When you grow up somewhere where olives do not grow, like I did in England, than olives and their picking, belong to a romantic activity which you elaborate in fantasy, and which are evoked by the films about the life on the Mediterranean. Ahh how lovely, I have been told by the English," You pick your own olives.. "
Adding to this, all those numerous adverts of the last decade promoting the virtues of the extra virgin olive oil, and to any westerner, the going olive harvesting may appear like an invitation to Eden itself, in which people who produce and consume the olive oil , live to be over a hundred years old, with perfect un-blemished, un-wrinkled skin, and thus pick olives in the company of their sun-tanned, smiling, elegantly dressed, idyllic multi-generation family.
Hoverer upon my arrival to Croatia, the matter of the olives, as life's all themes, where due for some illumination and reality check.
The first question leading towards the truth, was : Why are those olives which my grandmother makes horrible? I could not understand why they where bitter, squishy, brown, and terrible in all honesty. Why did grandma not produce those lovely purple ones in oils and herbs, or the giant green ones stuffed with almonds, garlic and cheese? All kinds of olives grow on our land after all. But a decade later I still have yet to encounter an individual who prepares the olives as the Greeks do.
Even though they grow at every corner, are painted, framed, and decorate every living room, the olives which are sold here are seuly the pickled in brine kind- the only alternative being the home baked olives, so love them or don't, that is whole whole spectrum of choice.
What I was unaware of before, is that the olives when picked -are practically poisonous. Not only can you not eat them when you pick them from the tree, because they taste like a combination of lemon peel and pepper, but even when you cook those lovely fat, extra fresh, just picked, olives- they destroy what ever you had enthusiastically -in the style of Jaime Oliver, thrown a fist full in to.
The reason why the locals do not prepare more interesting variations of the olives, is probably because they demand such a great quantity of botheration, and already the harvest in itself is a pain in the ass enough.
This weekend the commences the grand migration of the Croatian olive harvesters. Every man for himself aims to reach his olive trees, on foot, by car, or ferry, it not a matter of how, they must and will make it. Aliens observing us trough their telescopes, will suddenly note a unusual restlessness among the natives of the Croatian shore, and a illogical movement form the cities to the stony, knobbly ,desolute areas.
And its not like the people want to go harvesting or are particularly pleased by the re-enactment of the annual tradition, which connects us to the generations before us, and those before them, and those before them, thousands and thousands of years back, to the begining of human life, like an umbilical cord to the life force of the world.
The olives trees are very much like the Mediterranean mothers. The mothers however - on the entire Mediterranean are very much like octopuses, with the whole 8 tentacles set- (which don't you worry should they loose one -grows back soon enough) and those mothers keep a muscly grasp on their children from the beginning, to the end of their life, they like it or not. The olive trees- keep a life long grasp on you , just like the mothers do.
Frequent are the jokes made by the brave men, of how this year they will get a chain saw and saw down the olive grove once and for all times. But they cant . They don't dare. That guilt that the mother invokes in us, when she does not get enough attention,- it is also present with the olive tree.
You are obliged to go, harvest the trees planted by your great-granddad, who inherited them from his father, that inherited them from the father before, and so going back until the begining of time, when some ape Neanderthal, decided to see what would be the best way to prepare and consume those bitter berries so abundantly growing about, and had urinated to mark his territory and his first olive grove.
So as each year , we pluck the childen out of nurseries, and the aged out of old people's homes, and we all go to the olives, all the generations of the family, just like in a Bertoli olive oil commercial.
And its not like that oil that we produce is cheaper, than those in the shops, to the contrary after the costs of the ferry, the sleeping, and so forth, the oil is more expencive to produce. The production lasts longer. And at the end the oil of course is bitter, and you complain when the salad you have dressed with the family oil is far too spicey, but just like the mother, the olive tree- well its your very own olive, and the oil is your own hand made olive oil. When you produce it you find it hard to give the oil up, to share it, it is worth its weight in gold, and no one can afford its true value to you, however bitter it may be.
"Can you pack my things please." The husband asked this moring. "What should I iron "I asked. "The scruffiest t-shirts I have. " He answered. "Will you wear sweat pants? " I asked." No no- they are too good for the olives" he replied, ."The old ones with holes in, if you haven't thrown them away would be far more suited. " He said.
And so was dispelled another pleasant marketing illusion I grew up with, abut the idyllic elegance of the olive harvest.
I think it may be impossible for somone not born on the Med to properley understand why we make olive oil. It really does take days and days. But we do. And this weekend we are all rushing like in a gold rush madness, to the groves on the islands and mountains. So long!
The first question leading towards the truth, was : Why are those olives which my grandmother makes horrible? I could not understand why they where bitter, squishy, brown, and terrible in all honesty. Why did grandma not produce those lovely purple ones in oils and herbs, or the giant green ones stuffed with almonds, garlic and cheese? All kinds of olives grow on our land after all. But a decade later I still have yet to encounter an individual who prepares the olives as the Greeks do.
Even though they grow at every corner, are painted, framed, and decorate every living room, the olives which are sold here are seuly the pickled in brine kind- the only alternative being the home baked olives, so love them or don't, that is whole whole spectrum of choice.
What I was unaware of before, is that the olives when picked -are practically poisonous. Not only can you not eat them when you pick them from the tree, because they taste like a combination of lemon peel and pepper, but even when you cook those lovely fat, extra fresh, just picked, olives- they destroy what ever you had enthusiastically -in the style of Jaime Oliver, thrown a fist full in to.
The reason why the locals do not prepare more interesting variations of the olives, is probably because they demand such a great quantity of botheration, and already the harvest in itself is a pain in the ass enough.
This weekend the commences the grand migration of the Croatian olive harvesters. Every man for himself aims to reach his olive trees, on foot, by car, or ferry, it not a matter of how, they must and will make it. Aliens observing us trough their telescopes, will suddenly note a unusual restlessness among the natives of the Croatian shore, and a illogical movement form the cities to the stony, knobbly ,desolute areas.
And its not like the people want to go harvesting or are particularly pleased by the re-enactment of the annual tradition, which connects us to the generations before us, and those before them, and those before them, thousands and thousands of years back, to the begining of human life, like an umbilical cord to the life force of the world.
The olives trees are very much like the Mediterranean mothers. The mothers however - on the entire Mediterranean are very much like octopuses, with the whole 8 tentacles set- (which don't you worry should they loose one -grows back soon enough) and those mothers keep a muscly grasp on their children from the beginning, to the end of their life, they like it or not. The olive trees- keep a life long grasp on you , just like the mothers do.
Frequent are the jokes made by the brave men, of how this year they will get a chain saw and saw down the olive grove once and for all times. But they cant . They don't dare. That guilt that the mother invokes in us, when she does not get enough attention,- it is also present with the olive tree.
You are obliged to go, harvest the trees planted by your great-granddad, who inherited them from his father, that inherited them from the father before, and so going back until the begining of time, when some ape Neanderthal, decided to see what would be the best way to prepare and consume those bitter berries so abundantly growing about, and had urinated to mark his territory and his first olive grove.
So as each year , we pluck the childen out of nurseries, and the aged out of old people's homes, and we all go to the olives, all the generations of the family, just like in a Bertoli olive oil commercial.
And its not like that oil that we produce is cheaper, than those in the shops, to the contrary after the costs of the ferry, the sleeping, and so forth, the oil is more expencive to produce. The production lasts longer. And at the end the oil of course is bitter, and you complain when the salad you have dressed with the family oil is far too spicey, but just like the mother, the olive tree- well its your very own olive, and the oil is your own hand made olive oil. When you produce it you find it hard to give the oil up, to share it, it is worth its weight in gold, and no one can afford its true value to you, however bitter it may be.
"Can you pack my things please." The husband asked this moring. "What should I iron "I asked. "The scruffiest t-shirts I have. " He answered. "Will you wear sweat pants? " I asked." No no- they are too good for the olives" he replied, ."The old ones with holes in, if you haven't thrown them away would be far more suited. " He said.
And so was dispelled another pleasant marketing illusion I grew up with, abut the idyllic elegance of the olive harvest.
I think it may be impossible for somone not born on the Med to properley understand why we make olive oil. It really does take days and days. But we do. And this weekend we are all rushing like in a gold rush madness, to the groves on the islands and mountains. So long!
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