Pit olives

Pit olives carefully or expect a hefty dentist's bill. It is a simple-procedure but must be done diligently or you will suffer.

Talk to anyone coming from the Mediterranean and they will turn up their noses at pitted olives from the shop. This is a skill that you must learn yourself, like shelling-pecans, and grinding wheat; or accept that you will be eating an inferior product. One that is less wholesome and with indifferent flavour.

The food-processing industry ruins olives just like they spoil pecans and most foods. Going back to basics does take time, and a little effort, but the benefits are vast.

I do not know what happens when industry pits olives, but something drastic changes; I should ask my Italian-friend Aldo. Rather, do it yourself; it is so simple.

Lay out your olives on a plastic chopping-board or something similar. Take a strong glass and, one at a time, use the tumbler to crush them and squeeze out the pit.

Very important, place the pit in the glass and then pop the olive into a bowl where you might be making pâté, for example. European-spelling is interesting, not so?

That way every single pit will be accounted for; it only takes one to destroy a tooth. It should make your dentist happy; his next skiing-holiday will be paid for.

Pit olives

Pit olives is a very basic procedure that every single person in the Mediterranean can do and, we either learn it, or suffer from a cracked-tooth.

Use the glass to gently crush the olive and squeeze out the pit.

Count the olives and pits. If you're short, expect trouble.

Ten-olives and the same number of pits.

There is a laziness I am afraid in our world that we pay dearly for. We are unwilling to take a few minutes to pit our own olives, crack our nuts and bake bread; and chop and peel the butternut from the greengrocer. Rather we would entrust these chores to a food-company that will charge us an arm and a leg, and most likely spoil things in the process.

Sneakily they will often extract out the vitally important vitamins and fatty acids, which they will sell to the pig farmer at great profit; and the lignans that prevent metastatic-disease of the breast and prostate too.

Are you also too idle to pit olives, bake your own bread and shell pecan-nuts? Alas, you will pay the price. Plan on committing even more time for lots of visits to the doctor and pharmacist. A life without medication is a beauty to behold; believe you me, it is possible.

The pharmaceutical industry preys on our laziness and unwillingness to do these chores; and a heap of other fast-food companies.

Now you can turn your pitted olives into pâté or even tapenade by adding some capers. To my mind it is all about enriching the flavours and adding colours; to provide the phytochemicals that scientists now have proved will extend our lives dramatically with less chronic-disease and pain.

More these foods taste so much better. Do you take time to savour each mouthful and enjoy dinner mindfully? Many just shovel it down whilst focusing their attention on the television; no point then in pitting your own olives.

If you look carefully here you can see feta cheese, capers and garlic; lemon pulp, a peppadew and olive-oil complete the dish. It is a rich smorgasbord of flavours fit for a king.

Simply now use the stick-blender to turn your pitted olives into a paste; enjoy it on wholemeal bread and if you insist crackers. The latter have generally been ruined by the food manufacturing industry by extracting all the valuable nutrients from the wheat.

Better still get a little fancy by making a bruschetta; that's just a fancy name for stale bread that you have crisped up in the toaster and then added a creative topping.

There's a very strange tradition; brush your toast generously with olive-oil and then rub it with a clove of garlic, which you would then it seems toss out; just put it into your pâté instead. 

Incidentally one of the joys of sourdough bread is that it not only keeps longer but makes an even better bruschetta. Would you believe it, I bake a loaf every day and it takes me only five-minutes; there is a catch though.

Here is my sourdough bread recipe. It really is easy but to make the most nutritious and tasty-loaf in the world you do need your own mill.

Real bread can only be made with 100% flour which you simply cannot buy. It contains the natural anticoagulant, alpha-tocopherol, that means you are far less likely to have an embolic stroke or heart attack. It's a "functional food;" promotes wellness and helps prevent disease.

It really does take me just five-minutes, including milling the flour.

A little secret

Can I let you into a little secret? The cost of the olives is less than the glass bottle in which you buy them. Whilst it's true that you cannot do everything from first principles I am very pleased with the decision made three-years ago to preserve our own.

We now buy 30kg of Kalamatas from a Karoo farmer, have them couriered to our green home where preserving olives has become part of our determination to live long in the land, with wonderful-tasting, cheap yet nutritious food. Do you know how much nicer they are without the vinegar?

Tapenade with pitted olives may not look like much, but just you wait until you taste it.

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