My sister and her husband arrived from Florida a few weeks ago. We received an invitation to join a friend of mine and his family in the countryside of Rome for a traditional Sunday lunch and to assist with the annual raccolta or harvest of the olives.
That day inspired me to use this post as a way to pay respect to the tradition of the harvest, the longstanding traditions of an Italian family and to honor the infamous olive oil of Italy.
I think my Italian friends were more interested in giving us the experience of picking olives and seeing how Americans would hold up to the rigor of this most important annual activity. We were novices at the activity, but it was a nice way to show appreciation after a beautiful lunch in the garden.
Unless you are a factory producer, la raccolta is a family affair. During the month of October one can see the collections nets under the trees, as groups of family members, neighbors and friends are busy at work. It’s the ultimate in community efforts to share the work and share the reward.
Each time I have the opportunity to participate in the harvest, the experience brings me closer to true Italian traditions. How lucky am I to receive this welcome into the family?
A family affair that predates most civilizations
Olive trees are synonymous with Italy. They are grown in all of Italy’s 20 regions, and it is estimated there are well over 500 different varietals of olives in Italy alone. In fact, 538 types have already been documented, making Italy the leader in the diversity of olives, both for the table and for the production of olive oil.
Despite this vast supply, Italy is the second largest olive oil producer just behind Spain. Perhaps the Italians prefer to keep the best for themselves. I can understand why. Roughly 25% of the olive oil in Italy, comes from small family farms not for commercial resale.
“The olive tree is surely the richest gift from Heaven”
Thomas Jefferson
Tuscany, and the regions further north provide spectacular backdrops of beautiful olive orchard vistas, but the real production is further south where the climate provides the perfect growing conditions for the trees throughout the year. If you have ever driven through the countrysides of Puglia, Calabria or Sicily, you’ll understand where the majority of the olives in Italy come from just by gazing out of your car window.
Puglia alone produces around 50% of Italy’s olive oil. I went to Puglia for the first time four-years ago with my sister. It astounded me that I saw nothing but kilometers of olive groves stretching forever and disappearing into the horizon.
The oldest living olive tree in Puglia is over 3000 years old. If this tree could talk, it would tell tales that predate every modern civilization; before there was an Italy, before there was an America, and even before there was fake news. These trees are the real guardians of the truth of the land and the history of what this country was before the unification of Italy in 1861.
La raccolta delle olive
The actual gathering of the olives by happens often without the assistance of large collection equipment. The low-hanging olives are best removed by hand. For the taller parts of the tree “motorized rakes” are used with plastic fingers that girate and shake the higher olives from their branches cascading to the nets below.
My own experience of hand picking last week felt like therapy. After an hour or so I remembered how much I enjoyed the simple yet rewarding task of gently stripping the olives from the branches. I looked at my hands and rubbed my fingers together. I appreciated the slippery glistening layer of oil on my hands from the olives. There was the distinct aroma of the oil on my fingertips.
Sofia sits on the catch nets waiting to inspect the olives as they drop. She did take a few rogue olives hits to the head, but she didn’t seem to mind. As the olives dropped she chased them hoping to find one in an edible form. Unfortunately, olives from the tree are not ready for consumption.
Families gather together each year to participate in the raccolta and work quickly when the olives are at the optimal mix of black and green readiness. It’s a family affair as relatives gather around the trees, telling stories and bonding over the age-old practice of harvesting.
Families load picked olives into plastic crates, around 20 kilograms each, and take them to the frantoio for pressing.
If you gather enough of your own olives, you get the prize of your individual olive oil. Otherwise, for small harvests, you may find your crop mixed in with others and the resulting product distributed among the owners. Olive oil production is a proud tradition. Most families want their own oil to demonstrate the fruit of their labors.
For small groves, 50-60 trees, these can produce enough olive oil to satisfy a family’s demand throughout the entire year. It all depends on the bounty of the harvest.
At the frantoio, the olives travel by conveyor belts into the actual press which washes the olives, removes the leaves and stems, and ultimately moves the olives into the press. The grinder works with multiple chambers that ultimately extract the extra-virgin gift that the families have collected.
The amazing process happens very quickly when olives change from from their raw state to liquid green gold.
Picked olives retain their desirable state for a limited time. Many frantoio operations run 24-hours a day to keep up with the demand during the harvest.
Extracted oil pours from the press as a brilliant green liquid that profumes the frantoio. It is “hot from the press” as it pours into stainless steel containers where it will cool and then go into bottles or metal cans for final storage.
Olives nourish the body and soul of Italy
Olive oil is the nutritional life blood of Italy, particularly in the southern regions where butter and animal fats were less common and more expensive. The closer you get to France, Switzerland and Austria, you find butter more commonly used in recipes.
Mention cooking with butter in Southern Italy, and most Italians will show their disapproval. Butter is common in pastries and desserts, but savory foods require olive oil. The overall belief seems to be that butter is bad for your health, while olive oil can do no harm.
When I lived in France, selecting butter was a gastronomic adventure. The markets dedicated entire refrigerator cases displaying literally hundreds of different types of butter. You could choose butter from around the country with varying levels of salt, cultured flavor, herbs and spices. Olive oil options were far fewer.
In Italy, you will find the opposite holds true. Markets carry maybe 5-6 types of butter, mostly store-branded basic options for baking. One can find entire aisles full of olive oils both domestic and imported.
It fascinates me to see how olive oil has infiltrated not just the kitchen, but the doctors offices and pharmacies. When I had my recent colonoscopy, you can read that hilarious experience here, part of my doctor’s instructions included two tablespoons of olive oil a few times each day for up to a week. The doctor told me, “Quando sta bene, basta. When you feel good, that’s enough.” Perhaps at some point the gods of olive oil whisper the message, “Your colon is fine. That’s enough, child.”
I take vitamin supplements every day. Each vial is a liquid suspension containing, you guessed it, olive oil.
“And with the sprig of a fruited olive, man is purified in pure health.”
Virgil, Aeneid
Olive trees may be timeless, but there is a predator.
As much as I would like to believe these centuries-old testaments to the beauty of Italy are as indestructible as the spirit of the Italian people, the trees are facing a new nemesis in Europe.
In 2013, just after UNESCO designated the “Mediterranean diet” an intangible cultural heritage of Italy, scientists discovered a strain of plant bacterium infesting the trees, Xylella fastidiosa. Olive trees in Puglia were dying and withering within a few seasons. This bacteria was slowly killing the ancient guardians of Pugliese history.
This bacteria destroyed over one million trees in Puglia in the last decade. It spread through insects traveling from tree to tree. It attacked the water-flowing vessels of the trees and prevented water from reaching the tree.
Not all trees perished, but the predominant varieties in Puglia were targets. Farmers received orders to destroy the healthy trees as well, if they were within an unsafe distance from the diseased trees.
Last year I drove from northern Puglia to southern Puglia, Bari to Lecce. After the city of Brinidisi, there was a land barrier. It was designed to protect the northern region trees from the devestation in the southern region. Once I reached the outer permeters of Brinidisi, the visible destruction of the trees was inconceivable. What was kilometers of green groves, became brown standing cemeteries of thousands and thousands of trees. I looked upon the groves and wept as I drove. The damage was so profound that I refused to even capture it in pictures. I never wanted to see it again.
I don’t want to leave you without hope. There are significant efforts underway in Italy and throughout Europe to solve the problem. Agricultural specialists are conducting experiments with non-susceptible trees to graft parts to existing trees in an effort to preserve them without having to destroy entire orchards.
The average olive tree begins producing after five years, but does not reach maturity until 15 years. So imagine families who have tended to their land for generations, only to find out that they must destroy everything and wait 5-15 years for the replanting to yield results.
Speriamo, we hope, that science will outpace the disease and save these guardians of history. It’s a beautiful part of Italy and it’s a family affair that must be preserved.
I hope you enjoyed this homage to the olive and the Italian families that safeguard the tradition. The next time you’re in the market shopping for olive oil, try finding those that are 100% Italian and sample those from Puglia, Sicily or Calabria. I think you will come to appreciate the beautiful flavors as much as I do.
There was a beautiful article in United Airlines Hemisphere magazine a few years ago written by Lisen Stromberg. You can find it here. It tells the story of the Pugliese trees and the challenges they face and how their stories can relate to the human struggle. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for following The Spaghetti Diaries. If you’d like to share this on social media, please do. Also, if you haven’t subscribed, please do so below. You”ll never miss an update to The Spaghetti Diaries.