Making Sicilian Style Fermented Green Olives

big, lively, acidic, rich tasting olives, oh yeah!

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I’m going to tell you how to make delicious fermented green olives by the easiest curing method I know of.  One of my many long term projects has been curing olives.  I started because I love them and because they were too expensive for me to eat in the quantities I wanted to.  I figured I could turn those olives growing all over California into something tasty.  Some 20 plus years later, I have a pretty good grasp on the subject.  I’m headed to an olive tasting event this weekend, the Olive Odyssey organized by olive curing champion Don Landis.  I was going to print up recipe cards for sicilian style olives, but thought I’d just save paper and send people here instead.  Besides, now people can bump into this awesome recipe on the web!

What’s so cool about this recipe?  Lotsa stuff.  It is perhaps the easiest curing recipe I know for olives.  There is no maintenance to speak of.  There is no leaching with lye, or water, nor anything else.  You stick ’em in a jar with brine, seal it up, leave it for months and open one when you are ready to eat them.  And of course they taste hella good homeslice!  Big fat juicy, lively, acidic, rich tasting olives… oh yeah.

The downside?  You have to be patient!  Wait, that’s good for you, so get over it!  Oh, and I only know one olive common in California that is really good for this process.  If you’re lucky enough to have access to this olive though, you’ve got a gold mine of potential hanging on those trees in the fall.