L'olio di oliva

How many times in response to: "What did you do this weekend?" can you reply: "I harvested olives and saw them get pressed into oil!"?

Pat Scanlon, the director of SYA Italy, has a beautiful house in the country where they have dogs, cats, chickens, gardens and fruit trees...and an olive orchard. We had been there for lunch in September and helped to prune the trees. But this time we actually got to rack the olives off the branches onto tarps and then pour them into huge crates and sacks to be brought to the press. Talk about quintessential Italian experience!

From our visit in September -- olive tree pruning & fabulous Sunday lunch out on the terrace.

Pat & Linda Scanlon, Rick, Brad & Amy Park

Today was a lot cooler and threatened rain. When we arrived at 11, the Scanlons, two Italians couples (with dogs!), Kevin and the Davises were already there working hard. Max couldn't wait to get his hands on a rake.

Once the olives were too high to reach, the choices were to put the rake at the end of a pole, rake olives off of cut branches or hike up a ladder. All the while, you had to make sure there were tarps below to catch the falling olives.

It was really terrific -- the kids were sitting on the tarp playing with animals, parents, colleagues and friends were working together to rake, collect and move tarps. It was the way you would imagine life long ago, when a community comes together to get the work done.

 

picking through to remove leaves and branches

gathering tarps to pour olives into buckets, sacks and/or crates

Bucket o'olives

Then the rain started around 2:20. We picked everything up and headed inside for lunch. The concern is that if the olives get wet, they'll end of getting moldy. Linda & Giorgio were hard at work in the kitchen while Amy and Simeone manned the grill.

Fiori di zucca simmering for a pasta sauce

amazing sausages cooked over a smoky fire

There were three big tables set up for the 20 of us. Wine was passed around as everyone celebrated the harvest, and lunch began: Bruschette with some of Pat's olive oil and salt. Pecorino with a radicchio relish or honey. Spaghetti with fiori di zucca, tomatoes, peppers, and oil. For il secondo pork, pork and pork! We had the sausages from the grill, pork fillets simmered in sauce and little baby meatloaves wrapped in red peppers. Roasted potatoes drenched in Pat's olive oil.  Linda made her own gelato with peach compote on top and Pat passed around the espresso and liqueurs. Wow.

Around 5 we loaded the olives into Pat's van and headed back to Viterbo. We arrived at the press (frantoio) -- a smallish building that I never would have looked twice at from the street. Apparently they are open for pressing olives for about 8 weeks in the season from 4am to 11 pm and you need to reserve your time slot for when you are going to drop off your olives. In two days, your oil is ready to be picked up.

I found the whole process fascinating. You arrive at the Frantoio and dump your olives into these huge plastic crates.

A forklift comes over and carries your crate to the scale. The scale starts at -30 k (weight of crate). Pat brought in 318.8 kilos of olives (and it "wasn't a good year"). Then they bring it over to a covered area where dozens of crates are stacked up with tags, waiting to be pressed.

 

While we didn't get to see Pat's olives go through the process, we were able to observe the steps someone else's olives went through: The fork lift brings them over to a big metal bin with a "drain" at the bottom and dumps them in. The olives get sucked up a conveyor belt. At the top, a fan blows off the leaves, then they go into water to be rinsed and to get rid of the rest of the leaves. From there they go down a chute and land on the millstones where they are ground. Then they drop on a metal plate (like a huge donut) that is stacked with loads of others and squeezed. 

scraps being tossed away (but not thrown away!)

stacks of metal "donuts"

Look at that color. And the smell in the place, it was unbelievable.

As we were there, we saw others coming to pick up their oil. Some in huge plastic jugs and others in these beautiful metal canisters with spigots.

Outside you could see crates full of leaves (don't know what they do with them) and crates full of olive "scraps" drying out. Apparently they are sold as "pellets" for stoves.

This is the cold press process, going way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Very cool.