by Basil and Helen Koutalianos
A brief look at small olive and commercial production, the conditions over the 2001/2002 harvest and celebrating Basil Olive Oil’s support at this year’s Bocuse d’Or culinary competition in Vancouver and Lyon, France.
Olive is a fruit that cannot be consumed directly from the tree. It is necessary to undergo a series of processes to remove its bitter component. For our Golden Olive Vassiliki® organic olives, this is a traditional process that has been followed from generation to generation, using lemon, celery and spices to produce the excellent flavour and taste. Our olives have naturally a higher sugar content in the flesh. A high sugar content in the flesh lends to a better flavour, the lowest acceptable level being four percent.
It is a two-month long labour of love. While, commercially, caustic soda is added and ripens the olives in about 10 hours, thus reducing labour and time. This method produces tasteless olives, because the process strips the olive of all its goodness.
The 2001/2002 season was very problematic for olives due to anomalies in weather, from drought to extreme cold weather. Snow in many areas of Southern Greece is very unusual, and whenever it happens it never lasts. But this year, the low temperatures in some areas reached -27°C which damaged not only the olives but also the olive trees. At the same time life is becoming difficult for the farmers who agonize to make a living as they are confronted with high prices for fertilizers and other supplies when at the same time young people are moving to the big cities looking for a better life and abandoning family farms.
Careful pruning of the olive trees are required to produce quality table olives. And rather than using typical machinery, hand picking is the preferred way as it protects the fruit from bruising. As such, the process takes time and harvesting table olives is proving to be uneconomical as per our market pressures. Kalamata olives suffered due to a rainy November season which delayed the harvest and a freak cold snap in December that destroyed crops. (Kalamata olives grow only in the Peloponnese region of Greece and no where else in the world.)
Big news! Our Golden Olive Eleni® organic extra virgin olive oil was the official olive oil used in the Canadian qualifier and junior competition at the Bocuse d’Or finals in Vancouver in June 2002, and those going to Lyon in January 2003. We thank our customers, chefs and the B.C. Chef’s Association for their support.