A Hundred Ways with Olive Oyl.
A Short Toed or 'Snake' Eagle
It's olive picking time. The Sánchez Olive Oil Empire's hardy and willing workforce is about to swing into action again. We're off to Casarabonela, in the heart of La Sierra de las Nieves in the Biosphere Nature Park and just a stone's throw from Álora. (24km/15 miles). That's where the family estate is and its 100 olive trees.
Finca Vanamba/ Finca Caicunes/ Olivar Caicunes
We've been rained off for a few days so far but we hope to start again tomorrow. (we did). Mrs.Sanchez uses the occasion to show off some of her favourite designer workwear and we all look forward to her latest ensembles. Local farmers and goatherds alike stand and gaze as she strives in style beneath the leafy boughs. Passing motorists travelling between Casarabonela (just try saying it!) and Ronda sound their horns and have been known to miss completely the dangerous bend, just out of the picture on the left, with tragic results.
It's a sight for sore eyes if ever there was one and I can testify to that because I was struck in the eye by a springy olive twig on Sunday and it hurts. I have bought some safety spectacles from our local ferretería in Álora. They are selling like hot pies there at the moment..
A lot of people think that olives are either green or black but we've got green ones, black ones, yellow ones and purple ones and some that are yellow AND purple. They all go black eventually, when they are ripe. All our olives will go to make oil and the best time to pick them is when they are ripe (black).
Q: What do you call a woman who collects olives?
A: Annette.
That's an olive growers' joke. I bet you were going to say 'Mrs. Sánchez'! We olive growers split our sides every time we hear that one, I can tell you.
Anyway, that's how you pick olives. You spread a net or two under the tree and try to make the olives fall on to the net. Most olive pickers round here hit the branches with a long stick and hope the olives will all fall onto the net. It's called 'vareando'.
Apart from the obvious health and safety issues that arise when two or more beefy bough bashers thrash about in the air with big sticks, ( I can just hear my mum saying 'Stop that right now.You'll have someone's eye out!'), we think that it's cruel to the trees and anyway our olives don't respond to rough treament and would refuse to fall into the nets. The nets are called either mantos or toldos depending on who you speak to in Cafe-Bar El Madrugón but never redes which is the Spanish word for nets.
Álora's most popular olive is called a Manzanilla or aceituna Áloreña.. It has DOP (denominación de origin protegida) status like Melton Mowbray pork pies. Manzanilla means 'little apple' and that's what it looks like. It's one of the best olives in the world for eating.
Manzanilla Olives
Our olives are 'Picual' and are grown just for the high quality oil they produce.
We've picked 750 kilos so far which should give us at least 75 litres of Extra Virgin Oil. And we're not halfway through the crop yet.
Picual Olives
We'll take the olives to the mill just over the hill from our olivar (olive grove) to be 'pressed'. Before any olives are pressed they have to be ground (molido) or 'milled'. Olive oil is the only edible vegetable oil that is produced from the flesh of the fruit, but the stone is also crushed along with the flesh for it's oil content. It is the pulp made from the skin, flesh and stone of the olive that is 'pressed'. Traditionally this was done between circular straw mats.
To be 'Extra Virgin Olive Oil' the oil must have an oleic acid level of no more than 0.8%. Anything above this will be plain old 'Virgin', lowly 'Olive Oil' or one of the nastier 'refined' olive oils which has goodness knows what unspeakable things done to it.
Spain is the biggest producer of olive oil in the world. Much of its oil goes to Italy where it is relabled and sold as Extra Virgin Italian Oil and exported to the USA where the Mafia control the whole bang shoot. (Just watch The Godfather 2 if you don't believe me).
This year Sanchez Oil Empire SA. expects a bumper crop so we have been obliged to employ some cheap foreign labour. The wage levels are poor so it's difficult to attract good quality workers. An ability to multi-task is essential in this job. Here you can see one of our casual staff doubling as a telegraph pole.
I'll let you know when our oil is ready for sale. I suggest that you get your orders in quickly while stocks last.
On the way to Finca Vanamba/Finca Caicunes/ Olivar Caicunes the other day we spotted a Short-toed Eagle flying with a snake dangling from it's beak, a bit like the one in the photo above.
Speaking of pies, you may remember I have been looking for a decent Spanish pie. Most unexpectedly I saw this sign outside a bar in Córdoba a couple of weeks ago.
Third on the list; 'Empanadillas de Cochinillo' (little suckling pig pies'). Unfortunately I wasn't able to sample one of the little chaps but it looks like Spain is getting on the right track at last.
I had a 'pork and chorizo pie' in a pub in Liverpool a few months ago which sounded like a simple but brave attempt (for Liverpool) at feasible fusion food. It was the worst pie I have ever encountered. It must have been in the pie display cabinet since the Beatles used to drink and eat pies in there with rocking horse people. I told the barman it was as dry as a dead dingo's donger and he helpfully suggested that I should try tomato sauce on it or f*ck off. How we laughed! I should have had the 'Scouse pie' instead.
Incidentally, if you are in Liverpool and partial to a bit of top class authentic Spanish nosh (with a dash of scouse) get down to 'Lunya' in College Lane. They even have Tomatoes in Olive Oil from Álora.
November 10th. 2015
