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Kalamata olives: One of the gifts from the Greek goddess Athena

By ERIC STANWAY - Special to The Sunday Telegraph | Jul 31, 2021

It is said that, in ancient times, the goddess Athena bestowed two gifts on the Greeks – namely, wisdom and olives. The first is self-explanatory, but if you’re going to be doing a lot of deep thinking, you’ll want nourishment.

For the last five millennia, the olive has been revered throughout Greece. In the earliest Olympian games, the leaves were used as a prize for champions. As a matter of fact, two of the oldest olive trees in the world, the Tree of Vouves and the Azores Olive Tree, still thrive on the island of Crete, once home to the ancient Minoan civilization. The Azores tree clocks in at a venerable 3,250 years, while the Vouves specimen’s age remains vague. Some estimates place it at over 5,000 years old.

Among the most prized of the Greek olives are the Kalamata, which only grows in Messina, on the Peloponnese peninsula, and in neighboring Laconia. These olives are dark red in color, and have a meaty, substantial texture. These olives are picked by hand to this day, to avoid bruising. At harvest time, nets are placed around the trees to catch the dropping fruit. At this point, the olives are still very bitter, and require processing before they are suitable for the table. This involves soaking the olives in brine for a week, after which they are packed with brine, wine vinegar, slices of lemon and olive oil.

Apart from being delicious, these olives are a nutritional powerhouse, containing phenolic compounds, a strong antioxidant. They are also a good source of fiber, calcium, vitamin C, vitamin K and vitamin E. Additionally, they provide magnesium, phosphorous, and potassium, as well as B vitamins.

Olives were ubiquitous throughout every Mediterranean culture. Aristotle and Homer sang their praises, and Leonardo DaVinci invented a modern olive press. Egyptian pharoahs were buried with golden carvings of olives, and the Greeks invented a special blade, the strigil, to scrape olive oil off the skins of their athletes.

The first King of Israel, Saul, was crowned by rubbing olive oil into his forehead. Actually, the Hebrew word for “messiah” comes from “unguent,” implying that, should the messiah appear, he or she would be slathered in oil. The doors of Solomon’s temple are even carved out of olive wood.

There is also a Turkish recipe, called the “Swooning Imam.” The story goes that a priest married the daughter of an olive oil magnate, and received several amphora full of the stuff as a dowry. For some reason, his new bride decided to stuff the jugs with eggplant, which promptly sucked up the expensive liquid. When the Imam saw what his wife had done with this valuable property, he dropped into a dead faint right on the spot.

In Greece, the traditional accompaniment to olives is feta cheese, a salty brined product made out of sheep’s milk. The two go together wonderfully, as demonstrated in the following recipe.

•••

SPAGHETTI WITH FETA CHEESE, TOMATOES AND KALAMATA OLIVES

1 1/2 pounds tomatoes (about 3), seeded and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted

1/4 pound Feta Cheese Crumbles

3 tablespoons drained capers

3 Tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

3/4 pound spaghetti

6 tablespoons olive oil

3 cloves garlic minced

In a large bowl, combine the tomatoes, olives, feta, capers, parsley, salt, and pepper.

In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the spaghetti until just done, about 12 minutes. Drain.

Meanwhile, in a medium frying pan, heat the olive oil over moderately low heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the cooked pasta and the garlic oil to the tomato mixture and toss. Makes four servings.

(Recipe adapted from litehousefoods.com.)

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