It's a poll! About olives!

[Doctor X]

--J.D.

[Corona688]

I don't mind the black ones on pizza but entire olives? Umm...

Come to think of it I don't think I've ever tried whole olives.

[freemonkey]

I hated green olives when I was a kid, but they only came stuffed with pimento and pearl onions. I hated both of those things, so I never gave the olives a chance. Left to my own devices I could have easily eaten a can or two of black olives on my own.

But now that there are so many more choices in green olives, I really love them. Agree that the garlic-stuffed ones are great, as are jalapeno-stuffed ones, and almond-stuffed ones.

The only thing I don't like about olives are the pits.

[livius drusus]

Did you know you can burn olive pits for fuel? Like in a fireplace or a brazier? They used them for that in Herculaneum.

[Qingdai]

[Iacchus]

The black ones go great with pizza and burritos.

[Kael]

Oh, hai. Is this where we troll Mr. Drusus by praising canned black olives and condemning regular green ones?

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

I do enjoy many kinds of olive, the black ones are dyed.

Post proof or retract.

Anectdotal evidence to the contrary:

1. I spent several summers with my grandparents when I was just a wee lad. The house they lived in was on the estate of an old Spanish hacienda (Don Fernando Pacheco de Vallejo) in Concord, California. There was a long lane of huge old olive trees. One day, whilst strolling with my grandfather, I, being an early devotee of the olive, asked if I could pick an olive from one of the trees. Grandpa had to lift me up so that I could reach the lowest branch and I picked a hanful of olives. With eager anticipation I popped one of those supmtuous olives into my mouth and promptly gagged. Grandpa laughed his ass off. How was I to know that olives needed to be cured before they were fit to eat? By the way, those olives were as black as the inside of a cat.

2. My folks live in Phoenix. They used to have an olive tree in the back yard. My father started curing his own olives. He used a lye brine. The olives, which were a deep black when they were picked, turned various shades of gray during the process. While the color was unappetizing, the taste was outstanding.

I agree with those who have praised the garlic stuffed green olives. I loves them. I save the brine from those olives and use it to make pickled eggs, which I also loves. I used to use beet brine for the eggs, but it makes them too sweet, though it does turn the eggs a lovely lavender. I also love the big black garlicy greek olives that are used in greek salad.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

I like them in 2 applications:

1) An Italian place on the main drag in my neighborhood has an outstanding pizza. Hot salami and black olives. The dough is slightly bready, but perfectly chewy and insanely delicious.
2) Baked southwest pasta. Again, black olives.

Otherwise I'm with mulebear.

[chunksmediocrites]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

A through all that olfactory din I couldn't ignore the razor-sharp stink of the juice around the canned black olives.

Canned black olives were my first introduction to olives and I hated them very much, until as an adult I was turned on to olives that weren't soaked in lye, exposed to oxygen, then cooked inside a metal can, yuck.

I like olives preserved in brine quite a bit, and there are a number of olives which are delicious, but they are rich so a little goes a long way.

[S.Vashti]

I think my first olives were the green ones with pimentos in them, and then the black olives. I like pretty much anything salty and sour, so olives are right up my alley.

[ShottleBop]

Originally Posted by Leesifer

Do you love them or hate them. I don't think there's a middle ground with olives.

I used to hate them - they tasted like antiseptic to me.

Now I love them.

I had to keep trying them because they always look so nice and usually the people I was with at the time raved about them. A couple of months ago, I tried the big green olives and loved them. LOVED THEM! So now I am an olive fan. I love them all, plain and stuffed.

I desire to learn of members feelings toward the majesty that is the olive.

I love almost all olives. Kalamatas are my favorite, but I like to go into a local Italian deli and order a pound of their mixed olives.

By the way, did you know that you can actually find videos online about "olive sitting"??!! It's true!!!

Olive Sitting

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

[Qingdai]

Proofs that olives are sometimes dyed black (I assume the cheap ones in cans are, I could be wrong about that, but it happens).

"Olives can be darkened by different methods, some of which utilize chemicals and even dyes in some locations. The present study was carried out to evaluate the different darkening methods in terms of acceptance and safety of blackened olives. Olives were blackened naturally (on the tree) as well as artificially. For the latter, air oxidation was conducted on both mature and green olives using different alkalis. Moreover, blackening with nigrosine and hematin dyes was applied, since consumers prefer the appearance of such olives as well as their low price. " from

Quality attributes of black olives as affected by different darkening methods
H. M. S. Zienaa, M. M. Youssefb, Corresponding Author Contact Information and M. E. Aman
ScienceDirect - Food Chemistry : Quality attributes of black olives as affected by different darkening methods

[ravenscape]

my only exposure to olives as a kid was the little green cocktail olives stuffed with pimento. I was very, very underwhelmed. My mom used to buy jars of pimento cheese spread that had bits of the same kind of olive in it. Horrible stuff. I wasn't exposed to *real* pimento cheese until I was in college.

My first taste of Kalamata olives was at a high school Latin club Saturnalia party. Thus began a life-long love.

[ChuckF]

Fuck all olives.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

Proofs that olives are sometimes dyed black (I assume the cheap ones in cans are, I could be wrong about that, but it happens).

The key word there being "sometimes". I have no problem with that and I am sure that it is the case. Your original post on the subject did not contain that qualifier.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by ChuckF

Fuck all olives.

Hey, if the hole fits, go for it.

[ChuckF]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

Hey, if the hole fits, go for it.

You Lutherans are so progressive.

[Megatron]

I can't stand black olives but I love green ones, especially the amazing ones I found in Greece where they put in hot chili peppers instead of pimentos.

I'm not sure what exactly it is that happens when they ripen but it totally ruins the flavor for me.

Maybe it's that dye stuff Q was talking about.

[Demimonde]

I eat olives by the handful. Also my favorite late night snack that I have Contra hooked on: a toasted everything bagel, with cream cheese, and chopped olives on top. Heaven!

[Sidhe]

They are no Marmite I can tell you that much.

Hate olives, they taste like crap, although olive oil is not so bad. What have the Romans ever done for us though?

[Dragar]

I'm new to olives - I only discovered them about a year or two ago. They are awesome, much better than Poland.

[Doctor X]

--J.D.

[Angakuk]

My wife makes tuna salad sandwiches with chopped black olives in the tuna salad. She calls them gnat sandwiches because the bits of chopped olives make it look like bugs have gotten into the tuna salad. They are ideal for serving at picnics. If real bugs get into the sandwiches you can't tell the difference. By appearance alone, anyway.