Are Olives Fruit?

Frantoio La Visona Olive Oil Cooperative

In a word, yes. Olives develop from the flower of the olive tree, therefore they are fruits, and I suppose they are stone fruits, as they have pits. Olive oil production is a highly contentious subject in Italy. Like most crops it has been subject to large companies coming into the area and working on large scale farms, while the local farmers fight to keep their traditions and superior products alive. We visited a traditional olive mill which operates as a cooperative, meaning that lots of smaller farms join their harvests together to create an abundance of product. Farmers will bring in their olives for pressing, they will take the oil they need (it’s a source of pride to offer your guests oil from your own crops), and the rest will become part of the group collection. The mill will sell bottles of olive oil gleaned from many of the local farms around Lucca. Angelo, the owner of the mill, had very specific opinions about how the oil should be produced for maximum quality.

Traditionally, farmers pick all the olives by hand, climbing up and down ladders in their groves. To maximize space, the olives are often grown on terraced hillsides, so by necessity they are picked by hand. The large farms have machines that shake the olive trees causing all the olives to fall on to nets on the ground.

Millstones

Picking of the olives has to be carefully timed. Stored in large bins, the olives will turn rotten very quickly, and it is imperative they be pressed as soon as possible. Angelo will not accept olives for pressing that are older than 3 days, and he claims that the larger mills will take olives of any age, resulting in an inferior product. At the co-op, the actions of a single farmer can have ramifications for everyone else, so no one tries to sneak in old olives. If they did, the oil for the entire co-op could be ruined, and no one would make any money.

Clean sieves

Step one of olive oil production: remove the stems and leaves that wind up in the bins from picking. Step two: wash the olives so they are clean. Step three is fun: crush the olives (stone and all) using a mechanized mill stone. These are large round “stones” (boulders more like) that spin around quite quickly and crush the olives into a paste. Next the paste is spread onto a kind of sieve; it looks like a squashed woven basket. Each sieve is about an inch thick, with a large hole in the middle. When loaded up with the paste, the sieves are stacked on top of each other on a dolly, and then wheeled over to the pressing machine. Here the oil is squeezed out of the sieves, this is called cold pressing because the olives are not heated to harvest the oil. This is also the first pressing. Some large oil refineries will use the pressed sieves to extract more oil using heat and/or a chemical process. This is not cold pressing or first pressing. Angelo believes that this is an abomination, but he will sell his used sieves to these companies, as he would have just thrown them out anyway. The final step is separating the oil from the water, because when the olive paste is pressed, both water and oil are produced. The separation is done via a machine (I think it was a centrifuge), but as Angelo tells us, in the old days, they would have just waited for the oil to rise to the top.

The first, cold pressing of olive paste to make olive oil

During our visit, the mill was temporarily closed, but this is a rarity. During harvest season, they operate all hours of the day and night. 24/6.5, as they close early on Sundays to clean the machines so they will continue to operate properly. The co-op is a small one room operation, but when those machines are fired up, it has all the volume of a full blown factory. As expected from an olive mill, every surface is oily, and we had to step carefully lest we slip on the slick floors. The smell of olives was pervasive, but pleasant. Wanda and Angelo were old friends; her family has been bringing their olives there for decades. He says she gets preferential pressing times since she has been a patron so long, but she claims she remembers coming in at 2am in the past.

After the tour of the mill, we adjourned to a small meeting room where we feasted on olive oil treats and meats prepared for us by Angelo’s wife; I’ve never met her, but I love her now for those delicious goodies. While we munched on bread, olive oil, and salami, swishing it back with wine, Angelo told us about quality olive oil. There is in an International Olive Council, which sets guidelines for the qualifications of oil. Interestingly enough, how the oil looks is not part of the grading system. The oil for sale at the co-op was a bright, cloudy, green; in sharp contrast to the clear yellows of oil commonly available on American grocery shelves, but it was the best oil I have ever tasted. Olive oil grades are based on the acidity of the oil, the more acidic the oil, the more rancid it tastes. To earn the coveted extra-virgin olive oil grade, oils must have less than 0.8% acidity. Oil at the co-op, Frantoio La Visona must be less than 0.3%.

Olive oil is flammable

US readers take note: the United States is not part of the International Olive council, and uses a different grading system. You are likely buying inferior oils marketed as a higher quality product. When you are purchasing oils, look for the key words: first cold pressing. I also recommend a quick perusal of the Wikipedia olive oil page for a breakdown of what you are likely to find at the grocery store.

And a final cooking tip from Angelo, only cook on low heat for short periods of time. If you are cooking you oil on high heat, or for longer periods, you will lose all the flavor and consistency of extra virgin olive oil. If you do need to cook on high or for a long time, use a lower grade of oil and then add the EVOO after cooking. This will save you money and flavor. 

One last thing: 

One last thing: when researching this post, I came across a book called Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller, and I am adding it to my reading list. This subject matter is the exact kind of thing Angelo was describing to us in his narration of small farmer vs global corporation.

Useful Links!

Photos from Our Trip!
Visit Lucca
Frantoio La Visona Olive Oil Co-op
International Olive Oil Council
Olive Oil on Wikipedia
Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil Link to the book on amazon
NPR Interview with Tom Mueller