{"id":36,"date":"2011-11-20T12:32:45","date_gmt":"2011-11-20T12:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sandralangston.com\/?p=36"},"modified":"2011-11-20T12:32:45","modified_gmt":"2011-11-20T12:32:45","slug":"olive-oil-is-expensive-for-a-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.sandralangston.com\/?p=36","title":{"rendered":"Olive oil is expensive for a reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have read many accounts over the years by people who have moved to Italy in order to live out their dream; a simpler life filled with good food, kind neighbors, good wine, and a more relaxed rhythm. \u00a0Ah yes, the dream. \u00a0Some of these accounts give the idea that having olive trees and making your own oil fits snugly into the category of “simple things,” but I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. \u00a0One rather successful writer told of undertaking–and completing– the pruning of her trees over a weekend. \u00a0Very poetic. \u00a0 \u00a0Maybe she did her pruning with a chainsaw and cut her trees off at the base, because that would have been the only way she could have completed the task in so little time.<\/p>\n

Establishing a tree which will produce fruit for many years is more than an art: \u00a0it is a long and detailed process which requires a depth of knowledge that most people simply cannot hope to absorb if they come to the study later in life. \u00a0When we bought our land it already had a number of older trees on it, and we have planted new ones to augment the harvest. \u00a0Ours have been helped along through their formative years by a couple of older men who, \u00a0each a\u00a0maestro\u00a0<\/em>of pruning in his own right, have had very different views on correct methodology. \u00a0Some pruners keep their trees chopped back and tortured into bony shapes, others leave more small branches, both in the search for the vital equilibrium between strength of tree and amount of fruit production. \u00a0I still don’t know which of our crotchety gentlemen can claim superior results. \u00a0 All I can say is that I thought I could learn myself, and I am humbled in my acceptance that, other than cosmetic touch-ups, it simply is not to be.<\/p>\n

A healthy \u00a0olive tree, left to its own devices, will turn into a black hole of foliage, sucking the light out of its own surroundings. \u00a0Pruning it into shape is for its own good, even if the tree may not be easily convinced. \u00a0 \u00a0Knowing where to make the master cut, which has to be done every few years, \u00a0is an art in itself. \u00a0 The\u00a0sopacavadd*<\/em>, which establishes the maximum height \u00a0attainable by a tree, lops off the main branches which strive skyward. \u00a0If this isn’t done, it becomes almost impossible to pick the olives with even the tallest ladder. \u00a0These shoots will also encourage the rest of the tree to hold back on production. \u00a0 After the cuts are made, the \u00a0profile of the tree becomes something akin to a giant rheumatic and knuckly spider, crouching over its downward-hanging greenery, but entirely devoid of leaves at the top. \u00a0 It will need a year to recover, but it will bear more fruit. \u00a0It takes an expert \u00a0up to an entire \u00a0long day to do the pruning of one mature tree correctly. \u00a0The rest of the branches will be carefully thinned to leave only those which hang downward, which makes raking the fruit from the branches much easier. \u00a0The olives fall \u00a0into a large piece of netting which is placed around the base of the tree in November for the harvest. \u00a0The use of \u00a0the new, and in my opinion \u00a0horrible, \u00a0vibrating harvesters still accounts for only about twenty percent of labor. \u00a0Most are still gathered by \u00a0friends and family on ladders spending day after day, raking down the fruit and loading it into plastic crates, \u00a0packing those \u00a0into cars, \u00a0ferrying them to the \u00a0frantoio<\/em>. Every town has one. \u00a0It is worth a visit to this large and active \u00a0pressing mill during harvest season–it is a hopping place, and your crates will be labeled and stacked carefully to avoid any ambiguity. \u00a0One’s oil is a very personal, and jealously guarded, commodity.<\/p>\n

I always thought, “How wonderful to harvest my own olives and make my own oil!” \u00a0 \u00a0until I saw how labor-intensive the process was. \u00a0Now we offer the pleasure of the actual harvesting to friends and acquaintances who are willing, and we split the oil fifty-fifty with them. \u00a0It seems like the perfect arrangement: they don’t pay for the oil, and I am free to paint. \u00a0We normally give away at least half of the oil we produce, even after splitting the initial yield.<\/p>\n

Most trees have a heavy harvest every two years, and a light to negligible production in off- years. \u00a0There is a cursory pruning around harvest time, but the main one takes place in early Spring, \u00a0and results in piles of greenery that is utilized on March 19, \u00a0for the Festa of San Giuseppe. \u00a0 These cuttings are dragged \u00a0by the tractorful into town and piled in huge towers to be kindled into raging fires at sunset. \u00a0It is a delightfully smoky solution to getting rid of the cuttings, \u00a0and simultaneously \u00a0placating the pyromaniacal urges in all of us. \u00a0These\u00a0falo<\/em>\u00a0are accompanied by the traditional dish of\u00a0pasta e ceci<\/em>, (pasta with chickpeas) served free to all \u00a0out of giant cauldrons, and\u00a0zeppole<\/em>, which are fried or baked bignet \u00a0filled with pastry creme and topped with a bitter cherry, or\u00a0amarena.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0It is a rite of passage from Winter into Spring. \u00a0I always hope for wind on March 19, because otherwise a pall of smoke can hang over the town for hours.<\/p>\n

Olive \u00a0trees are resistant to almost every vicissitude of \u00a0climate, and even fire will not easily kill them. \u00a0They grit their teeth and stand as all of their growth toward the light of heaven is hacked away \u00a0and they become \u00a0skeletal shadows \u00a0of their former selves. \u00a0They have a capacity for suckering–sprouting hundreds of small shoots from the base– and it can be incredibly time-consuming to keep these trimmed back if you have a lot of trees. \u00a0 Every pruning cut anywhere on the tree will lead to a number of new shoots which in a year will have grown thick enough to require the big guns: \u00a0 heavy loppers or a hatchet. \u00a0I can almost hear the trees snickering as I flail away with my tools in the hopes of creating a picture-perfect landscape. \u00a0They have been here many more years than me, and they will be here long after I am gone. \u00a0 An olive tree has all the time in the world; \u00a0the\u00a0ulivo\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0bides.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

drawing: \u00a0“Ulivo 2 (Tree of Souls)” \u00a0pencil and gold leaf on paper \u00a02009<\/p>\n

*(dialect, Italian:\u00a0sopracavallo)<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>