The Glorious Olive

This is an entry of a different ilk. In the year before I moved to San Antonio, and the first year I lived here, I had little money. One of the enterprises I undertook was writing a food column for a lifestyle magazine in Tampa, FL. At the time I was living without a kitchen. Some of the recipes were created from memory (like this one); others were created in my imagination, fingers hovering over a keyboard. (Was it duplicitous to have not kitchen-tested every recipe?)

A glorious tree flourishes in our Dorian land:
Our sweet, silvered wet nurse, the olive. Self born
and immortal, unafraid of foes, her ageless strength
defies knaves young and old, for Zeus and Athena guard
her with sleepless eyes.
– Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus

Olives boast an ancient history, and there are certainly few foods that are surrounded by such a multitude of lore, gastronomic or otherwise. From Virgil’s Aeneid to the Koran and the Bible to Cervantes to Shakespeare to Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, a belief in the redemptive qualities of the olive has endured across centuries and cultures. The olive branch is an age-old symbol of peace, and its curative properties have been extolled throughout time.

The presence of olive groves beside the vineyards of the Mediterranean has imparted a legacy to the cuisines of that part of the world, most notably in the richly abundant flavors of the oils used in the preparation of countless dishes from those lands. In North America we owe a special debt of gratitude to the Franciscan missionaries who planted the first olive tree around 1869 in what would become California, probably from Mexican seeds. Thomas Jefferson was so captivated with the olive that he once wrote, “The olive tree is surely the richest gift of Heaven.”

Olive trees are remarkable in themselves. They attain great age, growing gnarled and twisted to heights of 20-40 feet. Some in the eastern Mediterranean are thought to be over 2,000 years old. Yet it is said of the olive tree that it is a passionate tree, and must be loved if it is to bear the fruit for which it is so highly prized.

Olives vary in color depending on species and their degree of ripeness when harvested. A green olive is simply less ripe than a dark olive. All fresh olives are bitter and must be cured to become edible. After being sorted according to size and color, they are soaked in an alkaline solution (traditionally wood ash), then fermented in dry salt or wet salt (brine) to reduce bitterness and tenderize the flesh. Finally they are marinated in oil or vinegar, to which herbs, spices or other flavorings may be added.

Probably Americans are most familiar with the pimento-stuffed Spanish olives and the pitted ripe black olives that dually graced our Thanksgiving tables as we were growing up. These have been increasingly supplanted by a wide array of glistening, succulent orbs – Greek kalamatas, French nicoise, Spanish picuals and Italian frantoios and pintarolos.

Olives are fundamental to Mediterranean cuisine, and the rich mixture known as tapenade is a staple of Provencal fare. Made from a blend of olives, anchovies, and capers, tapenade is traditionally pounded with a pestle in a marble mortar and olive oil is added to form a creamy consistency. Even people who swear that they detest anchovies will fall passionately in love with this heady, delicious concoction. The essential triumvirate of ingredients can be augmented with garlic, herbs, even a little Cognac, but the foundation of the recipe remains the same.

Serve the tapenade on baguette slices as an hors d’oeuvre, or as a condiment for roasts, especially lamb.

Tapenade

In this recipe, garlic and thyme have been added to the traditional ingredients of olives, anchovies, and capers.

To pit olives, first consider throwing an old shirt over whatever you’re wearing. Place a handful of olives on a cutting board. Take the flat side of the blade of a chef’s knife and gently press on each olive. (They can squirt, hence the shirt.) This will break the skin, making it easy to slip the flesh off of the pit.

1 pound Greek-style olives, pitted
(traditionally black olives but experiment with less ripe ones, too)
4 anchovies fillets, drained
2-3 tablespoons capers, rinsed of salt or oil cured, drained
1 large clove garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
Pinch cayenne
1 teaspoon fresh thyme or ½ teaspoon dried, crushed
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (use a mild flavored variety)
Sea or koher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

With the flat side of a heavy knife lightly crush olives and discard pits. In a food processor, pulse olives, anchovies, capers, garlic, cayenne, and thyme to a coarse purée. Add olive oil and process just until emulsified, a couple of pulses. Season with salt and pepper, keeping in mind that all three primary ingredients are salty. Makes about one cup.

Tapenade Pizza
This is a fantastic use for leftover tapenade, but it is delicious enough to warrant the preparation of a batch specifically for the pizza.

1 round of prepared pizza dough
½ cup tapenade
½-¾ cup mozzarella cheese, grated
½ cup sliced scallion rounds, including light green parts
¾ cup sliced mushrooms, white or Portobello (optional)
Light grating of parmigiano reggiano cheese

Pre-heat oven to 450-500. Place prepared dough on a pizza pan (preferably perforated). Spread tapenade over surface of dough. Sprinkle with mozzarella, scallions, and mushrooms if using. Bake in the middle of the oven until bread is golden and surface is bubbly, about 15 minutes. (Keep an eye out.)

Wine suggestion:
Tapenade requires a full-bodied red to stand up to its flavor. Try a good Bordeaux or, for a special occasion, a Cahors. Certainly a Chianti rufino would stand in good stead.