Olive Oil Factory

Nearly two weeks ago I went on a little excursion to a local olive oil producing factory.  Walking in the front doors the wonderful aroma of olive oil fills your nose, you can almost taste it on your tongue.  The factory owns a field of olive oil trees up near Etna, starting in November the olives are ready to harvest.  Unfortunately I missed the excursion to go harvest the olives themselves, but luckily this next Saturday there is another trip up the mountain to do just  that.  And since it's on a Saturday that also means that Patrick can go!  I've learned quite a bit about olives since living here, so I'll share some of that knowledge with you.  (I'm sure that you've been dying to know all of this!)

First of all you can't just pluck an olive from the branch and chow down.  I've been assured that this is a rather disgusting endeavor.  The olives that you buy have been through quite a lengthy process.  First to harvest the olives they place nets under the tree and rake the olives off (there are new machines that also shake the tree, but this way is more harmful to the tree and every year they produce less olives).  Once the olives have been harvested they either go on to make olive oil, or are prepared for consumption. 

To prepare them you must either poke small holes all over the olive (I'm told a toothpick works quite well), or smash it gently with a small hammer.  Then the olives are placed in a large jar with salt and water, the olives must soak in this solution for two weeks, and you must change the water and salt mixture every day.  Once the two weeks are up then the olives are ready to be seasoned, with garlic, spices, vinegar, etc.

But I digress (naturally), the factory harvests their olives to produce organic olive oil to sell.  They also allow for people to bring in olives from their fields, or backyards, to be made into olive oil, for a small charge of course.  There were bins practically from floor to ceiling filled with olives. 

The process starts with the olives being dumped into a large container, they are then taken by conveyor belt to a large cylinder that rotates in circles on it's side (kind of like a cement mixer, but smaller) this helps to remove any branches or leaves. They then go into another container with water to get washed and any rocks that are left behind float to the bottom.  After this they are sucked down in tubes to another smaller cylindrical container where they are heated and mashed about, this extracts the oil from the olives.  The oil is then sucked down another tube and placed in containers for consumption.  The remaining olive mash is either sold and chemically processed to make a nasty, but far cheaper version of oil, or used as top soil.