Picking Particulars..
Picking Particulars:
It takes quite a bit of work to coax oil out of olives. Traditionally, trees were shaken or beaten with sticks to make the olives drop to the ground. Such tough treatment is not good for olives, however. Tumbling out of a tree and plopping onto the ground causes bruising.
Soft fruits, such as peaches and plums, wouldn’t take kindly to this type of treatment; they would bruise, too, and we would never think of harvesting them this way. Olives are also soft fruits that should be treated delicately because once they bruise, the beneficial oils within start to degrade.
Some olive oil labels declare that their bottles’ contents are made from handpicked olives. This typically denotes a better-quality oil. Some growers separate their olives into “ground” olives (those collected from the ground) and “tree” olives (those picked from the tree) and use them for different grades of oil. Many large-scale growers use a tree-shaking device and set up nets beneath the trees that catch the olives before they hit the ground.
Growers must be careful when transporting olives from the trees to the processing plant. Olives are best carried in shallow containers so they don’t pile up too deeply and crush one another. Any damage to the olives can trigger oxidation and fermentation, which create an “off” flavor. Olives should be processed soon after harvest because storing them also diminishes their quality.
