Chameleon olives

Olives have long occupied an honorable place in the national cuisines of many peoples of the world. In our country, olives appeared relatively recently, so there are disputes around their various properties. They have an interesting piquant taste, which is difficult to describe even to an experienced taster: they simultaneously contain bitterness and sweetness, sour and salty notes.

The mystery of this product has long divided all lovers of eating, into great connoisseurs of olives and their ardent haters. Even more interest in this product is fueled by a question that few people can answer: "Olive — what is it? Is it a fruit, or a vegetable, or a berry?"

The answers to this question are as contradictory as the taste of the product. Some prove that it is a berry or fruit, since it has a stone and grows on shrubs or trees. Others claim that it is a fruit or vegetable, because it requires additional processing, after which it acquires its own unique taste.

Olives grow on evergreen olive bushes or trees. In botany, up to 60 species of olive trees are distinguished, but only half of them are of industrial importance. The main industrial type of olive trees is the European olive (olive), one plant of which can produce up to 30 kg of fruit per season.

Plants of this species are resistant to high temperatures, and mountain varieties have frost resistance. The trees of this species are covered with dry, hard bark of gray color. Narrow gray-green rough leaves grow on their crooked branches. The leaves of the olive tree do not fall off in the cold season: they change on the tree gradually. Olive trees bloom in April-July.

The difference in the color of the fruits appears during their processing before canning. The fruits of the olive tree for preservation are collected still green. To preserve them green, it takes several weeks to soak the olives in brine.

To reduce the time of harvesting olives, this process is accelerated: they are saturated with oxygen. This process is called oxidation. After that, the olives acquire a coal-black color, for which a preservative, iron gluconate, is used to stabilize it. After such processing, producers receive black oxidized olives, which are preserved.