2025-12-21 (Su) Foraged olives COMPLETED

Back in early October, I saw some handsome olive trees near my apartment. My wife and I tried foraging for olive oil from them last year, but they were not oil-rich enough to be desirable in America. I soaked the tannins out of a handful and brined them, and they turned out fine. This year, I skipped the olive oil and went straight to soaking to prepare them for brining. Last year, I soaked for two weeks, even though the internet said that nine days would definitely, certainly, indeed, 100% get rid of all the tannins, but I could always taste the bitterness. This year, I soaked them for 2.5 MONTHS, and added baking soda, thank you, Alexis, to leach the tannins faster. The soda helped immensely, and two soaks with that did more than the two previous months of soaking.

Early October olives

After all the waiting, I bit into an olive, and I was not immediately repelled. There was not much taste, but it was a lot better than a tannin bomb. Part of the lackluster flavor was because these had no salt. Yet. I boiled some jars, rinsed the olives, and found the biggest slotted spoon in the house. I spent my evening transferring tiny, pitted olives from a 5-gallon bucket into piping-hot glass jars and sealing the lids with a vacuum machine. The wide-mouthed jars had a lot of salt, while the rest had less. Except for the quilt-pattern jar, which was salt and raw olives, for an attempt at salt curing.

That is a lot of olives and salt

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2025-12-21