Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeartRadio.
I'm Annie and I'm more in Vocal Bomb and today we have an episode for you about Kalamada olives.
Yes, and I have to tell you I love a Kalamada olive. But wow, did this episode give me some trouble? Because people love they love talking about olives, and they love talking about olive oil.
Uh huh, And I think it was mostly talking about olive oil. Finding the information about table olives specifically, which is what we as humans call the things that we eat out of hand like a Snack's that?
Yeah.
Less information is about.
That, yes, and confusing information often, but I feel we have done our best here and a lot of legally used to talk about which you know, yeah, I'm someone that enjoys that. Well, Lauren, was there any particular reason this was on your mind?
I think I realized we had never done an olive episode and maybe maybe you suggested something about olives for Mother's Day?
Oh yeah, my mom does love olives.
Okay, heck yeah, and I and I didn't select it then, but I was like, yeah, sure, let's let's return to that. Let's have that be a headache for today. Sure, and here we are. I do also love a Columnuda olive and this this was an episode where the cravings are so strong I need am as a plate immediately immediately.
My mom actually gave me some.
Oh I hate you a little bit right now. Oh it's fine. I you know, I haven't checked. I strongly believe that somewhere deep in my pantry, I have like a little packet of Colmuda olives that I got. And there was like a year or two ago I was ordering a lot of those like food boxes because I was like, Wow, I'm not feeding myself. I guess I need to figure out a way to get other people to make choices for me, so that'll actually do this thing. And I think I still have a packet from that.
I hope, so me too, hope. So I mean I can buy more. It's not a problem, just you know. Yeah, but it would be nice, It would be so good, it.
Would be nice. Well, yes, I think because this was our first foray in two oliops, we have been putting off olive oil. Oh yeah, that's one of the reasons. It might have been a little bit difficults But never fear, I've found many rabbit holes. I wanted to go.
Down cool awesome.
Yeah, yes, so one day many episodes will come from this one. But here's our entry, our appetizer. But I guess that brings us to our question. Kalamada olives what are they?
Well? Kalamada olives are a cultivated variety of table olives that are picked when they've reached this deep reddish purple black in color. They're oblong around it at one end and pointed at the other, a little over an inch in length and like half that in width, maybe three by one and a half centimeters, fleshy, with a thin skin and a stony, oblong seed in the center, which
can be removed during processing. They're fermented in brine and then packed in either brine olive oil, sometimes with some nice like heady herbs, giving them a final texture that's pleasantly soft and chewy with a slight snap from the skin, and this buttery, rich, briny savory flavor that's slightly fruity, tart, funky. The flavor and texture will depend on the exact process used, you know, like like they can be milder or stronger, kind of meltier or chewier. They can also be dried
resulting in a somewhat meteor texture. They're often eaten as they are as a snack or part of like a snacking plate, though they can also be tossed whole or sliced into salads, pastas, or stews, or chopped fine to make spreads or dips. They're kind of a powerful flavor, but the sort of thing that keeps you coming back for more. With that combination of like rich and bright, they're like a sparkle in the darkness.
Yeah, just have a lovely, tame, zippy like when you bite into it, it does feel like oh yeah, oh yeah, kind of a jolt of electricity almost.
Yeah, yeah, okay. The Kalamada variety of olives are named for the area they come from, which is around the city of Kalamada in southwestern Greece on the Peloponnese Peninsula. Olives in general grow on these evergreen trees that can range from like a bit over human height to like sixty feet that's twenty meters tall. Their trunks tend to
be increasingly gnarled the older that they get. The trees have these like leathery silver green leaves, and they thrive in hot subtropical weather and can with stand drought, though of course, like their fruit yield won't be as good if they don't get enough water. Makes makes sense. Yeah, They flower in the spring around April to May, and apparently kalamada trees in particular, they're a variety of the
overall species of olive of like fruiting olive. Apparently, lamadas are bad itself pollinating, like you really have to have other cultivars nearby in order to make it happen. If they do get pollinated, the flowers will develop a single fruit through the summer that will mature in the fall. For table olives, they're picked when they're mature but not quite ripe, around November. In the case of kalamadas, oil olives are picked after they're ripe around like December, because
the oils develop as they ripen. The fruits are either handpicked or gently shaken from the trees. And olive fruits are drupes, meaning that they have a pit a seed that's encased in a hard outer shell in the center of the fruit, like a peach or a cherry. The thing is fresh. Olives don't last very long, and kalamadas in particular are a little bit bitter, So how do you preserve them while also reducing the bitterness? Fermentation? Yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah. The fermentation process used on kalamada olives is called Greek style processing. It involves submerging the olives in a brine solution that's like six to ten percent salt and storing them for four to twelve months, adding more
salt to the top of the vessels as needed. During this time, the olives will undergo spontaneous fermentation thanks to the wild bacteria and yeasts that grow alongside them, including some familiar lactic acid bacteria, which are friendly bacteria that eat sugars and poop acids, which helps guard the olives against unfriendly bacteria and yeasts. The acid also adds flavor, and both the bacteria and yeasts produce other flavors as well.
Bacteria and yeast poop. Researchers are still looking into the exact strains that facilitate the process. One DNA study found hundreds of strains of both bacteria and yeasts in each sample that they tried working together in these lovely little microbiomes. Generally, industrially produced kalamada olives are made without starter cultures, which is a little bit like weird in the fermentation universe,
but I love it like definitely. Some of the research happening right now is looking at helping producers standardize their brine microbiome by developing starter cultures. So I don't know what the future will hold, but here we are. After fermentation, the olives can be dried, or they can be packed in brine or olive oil. Before packing, they might be pitted, after which they might be had quartered, sliced into rings,
or diced. Pitted klamadas might be stuffed with something like a little bit of garlic or a peel of lemon or orange. They can also be smoked, or the packing liquid can be seasoned with herbs or spices. There is a pedo protected type of Kalamada olives, which are Kalamada olives of Myscinia, Macinia being the prefecture that Kalamada is
the capital city of. I think, and I ran into some translation related difficulties while reading for this episode, but I think the PDO process involves hand harvesting, making a slice lengthwise down the al of before fermenting, and then after fermenting, marinating in vinegar and olive oil. I think if you know more about this right in, But I do know that only about five percent of kalmada olives
carry this pdo And yeah, however precisely they're made. They're used on their own as a snack or part of a messe plate that's like a snack or appetizer plate, or as a topping for whatever savory dish. Or it can be cooked into stews to add a little bit of brine and brightness in there, or they can be chopped into like a topknot or something.
Oh.
They're just so fruity but also like meaty, chewy and also salty savory at the same time.
They're lovely. They're really lovely.
Minus the crunch. I feel like their nature snack chip.
Oh yes, I was reading all the ways people use them as part of this research, and I was like, why have I never thought of topping roasted cauliflowers?
Oh yeah, right, any kind of roasted veg just yeah, like like pull it out of the oven or off the grill and toss a little bit of kalamado olives on there. Yeah, why wouldn't you?
It's what have I been doing? Anyway? Well, what about the nutrition?
Olives are a good for you, but nutrient dense food. They've got a bunch of good fats and proteins, plus a bunch of vitamins and minerals and other micronutrients. A surfing size is like five to eight olives, so like, watch your portion sizes. They do contain a lot of sodium too, so watch out for that if that's something you're watching out for.
Dang all right, good to know, good to know. Well, we do have some numbers for you.
We do, okay, So as I said, cultivated olives all belong to the same species, but there are over two thousand different varieties. Grease produces the second most table olives in the world after Spain, and Kalamada olives make up a little bit less than a third of Greece's table alive market, being the second most important cultivar that they produce. Grease harvests around ninety thousand tons of Kalamada olives every
year from some thirteen nine hundred farms. About ninety percent of those olives do go towards the production of table olives, not olive oil, of those that are. Of those table olives that are produced, eighty five percent are exported to other countries, and of that total, about sixty percent are pitted before being sold.
Interesting because I ran into this trouble a lot in the history section as well, whereas like how many were being exported, how many were being pitted? Difficult?
Yeah, those are numbers from I want to say, right around like twenty eighteen to twenty twenty. The PDF I was reading wasn't dated.
I love it when, which is fun.
But the scientific paper that reference to the PDF was from twenty twenty, so I strongly believe it was from the past couple of years. I think that that also because they're a natural product. Of course, you're going to have different harvest numbers every year. I read a bunch of different ones. Ninety ninety thousand tons seemed like a decent recent one.
Yeah. Yeah.
If anyone was like in a life or death situation where they needed to answer completely honestly about this, I just want to make sure that you have the full story.
Wow, and also let us know what was going on.
I Hopeulley, you don't, but right right, Oh goodness, Okay. Greece does hold a festival of olive oil and olives every year. This year it was held in the city of Kalamada in like late May early June. I think it was in its tenth year, and that it's mostly
like an agriculture industry learning networking conference. They've got presentations and exhibitions from researchers and other academics, plus representatives from farms, oil mills, packagers, producers of the machinery and other technologies, buyers, exporters, and the restaurant industry. They also have tastings and contests for both table olives and olive oil us a cocktail competition involving the winning olive oils, and apparently it is
the largest expo of its kind in the Mediterranean. Oh, listeners, please, oh my goodness, let us know if you've been Oh my goodness, Yes.
I'm involved.
Oh heck, it sounds really cool in a very niche, agricultural nerdy kind of way. Yeah. And I will say, because you made a face about the olive oil in cocktails situation, y'all. And he definitely made a face. I I was wondering about that being like a translation issue as well. Certainly table olives can go into uh into cocktails, But my dear and dearly departed friend Darryl did used to make a martini for his wife mel with all of oil instead of olive brine, because she didn't like
olives but wanted the martini experience. And it was really just a little floater of olive oil on there, like a really nice robust one, so good with the vermouth and the in the gin. Yeah, anyway, I.
Can see that working, especially if you have a good quality olive oil.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because kind of plays off of the like fruity spicy flavors of the gin. Anyway. Okay, here we are one last number for you. A mature olive tree can produce some fifty thousand flowers a year, only about one to two percent of which will actually develop into fruit.
Huh. That's my brain is struggling to make sense with those numbers because it seems like a lot and then like a little.
I mean, but that's we love all of But that's one to two percent. One to two percent of five hundred thousand is still quite a bit.
Yes, that's true. That's true. Okay, okay, all right, Well the history is quite tangly, but we do have a history for you.
We do, and we are going to get into that as soon as we get back from a quick break for a word from our sponsors.
And we're back. Thank you sponsors, Yes, thank you. Okay, different episode episodes, but olives in general are quite old. Fossil evidence suggests that the leaves of olive us go back over two point five million years, a long time. They likely originated from what is now Syria and Asia Minor, although I've seen a bunch of other their places floated
as well. Historians believe humans domesticated the olive tree around eight thousand years ago, making it one of the first trees people ever domesticated, which demonstrates the importance, perhaps of this crop. Evidence indicates people were eating all of us picked from the wild earlier than that, though at least ten thousand years ago. The discovery that the olive could be pressed for oil happened soon after domestication and changed
the landscape of so many cuisines. But again a separate episode or probably episodes, because olive oil is huge, and every thing I was reading wanted to make this all about olive oil, so it was kind of complicated, and here I am doing it, But just a couple facts in here. In nineteen ninety seven and all of oil press dating back six five hundred years was discovered. Older presses going back eight thousand years have been discovered too,
so it was really happening in tandem. From what we know, at least in their early days, the pits and oil may have been used as a fuel for fires, but olives not today olive oil. By eight hundred BCE, all of cultivation was widespread across Greece. Kalamada alive specifically are indigenous to Greece's Messenia region and particularly its capital and port city, Kalamada, a location with local water resources and
a mild climate. A lot of the specifics are lost, but the production of this variety was probably going strong from about three hundred CE to the fourteen fifty CE. They were a big part of the local diet but also economically valuable. According to one source, one of the first known written mentions of Kalamada olives particularly comes from Homer,
who described them as black as wine. They were eaten as table olives, fermented with brine to make the bitterness palatable, but a good chunk of olive production went to olive oil.
Certainly, table olives like klamados are one of the oldest and most continually popular fermented vegetables of the Mediterranean basin.
Yes and Kalamada olives were prized by the ancient Greeks for their flavor and perceived health benefits. From the early days of their cultivation. Growers picked them by hand, and then they went into a multitude of products on top of that, olives in general or just a really popular food stuff in the region. Soon that popularity spread from Greece to other parts of Europe like Rome and Spain
and North Africa. Trees were planted via cuttings, and the by products of olive oil production were used to feed livestock. The tree was fairly hardy and long lasting, which made it even more profitable. Olive oil could be used to trade, and the all of itself gained a cultural significance in places like Greece, where the olive branch became symbolic of peace. Producing olives and olive oil was fairly lucrative for the region,
and entire cities focused almost entirely on growing olives. But a lot of specifics around early production of Kalamada olives are missing. Researchers have made educated guesses, though one is that the early brine used was probably saltwater, and then
the olives were possibly flavored with available ingredients. Another thing, because olives are such a historically culturally valuable product, there has been discourse and are argument about who was growing them, and who could grow them, and if they were as commonplace in ancient Greece as we often have been told as the narrative often goes or instead a luxury crop
grown and enjoyed by the wealthy. If you want to learn more about that, entire books exist, which speaking of fun rabbit hole of the episode, but a brief investigation that I did suggest that people started stuffing pimentos into olives in France in seventeen hundreds to mitigate some of that bitterness, and the process was done by hand. This was the earliest date I could find two people stuffing olives,
which people sometimes do with kalamados. But again this was a real brief research session and I didn't even include pimento in my search, but it was pretty much most of what popped up. But I did learn that stuffed all of innovations continue, and I'm interested to learn more about it.
I do love like a blue cheese stuffed olive, or like a feta stuffed olive.
It's really nice. Yeah, yes, my brief research indicates that's relatively recent and I want to go down that rabbit hole so bad maybe one day.
Yeah. Olives were grown pretty much only right around the Mediterranean basin until European colonizers from that area started exporting them as they traveled during like the fifteen hundreds on. They mostly remained a Mediterranean product, though until like five hundred years later, around the year two thousand, serious cultivation efforts began in climate appropriate areas of China, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and Chile.
And then jumping way ahead confusing legally es all right, nineteen ninety six, the European Union granted a protected designation of origin to Kalamada olives produced in Messenia under its Greek name. However, this caused some controversy amongst all of girers outside of the region in Greece who grow olives using the same cultivar and felt like they should be able to use the name. This went all the way up to the Supreme Court in Greece in twenty eighteen.
Yeah, and for a while there producers of Kalamada variety olives outside of this Pedo area had to call their olives kalaman olives, which I'm pretty sure is a synonym in Greek, but isn't a well known term outside of.
Greece, so right, So in twenty twenty two, the government decreed that all producers of this variety of olive could use the Kalamada name in Greece. Perhaps obviously, the number of exported Kalamada olives went up pretty significantly after that, which was sort of the crux of the whole argument for Greek all of farmers outside of that region. But then producers outside of Greece started using the name, so
no one's happy, so say ya. Producers appealed this twenty twenty two decision in hopes of re registering the regional requirement of their products. In twenty twenty four, they registered the alive on the World Intellectual Property Organization are WIPO, which is an international legally binding register for things like
appellation of origin. It's actually way more complicated than all of this, so if you want to look into it, you can, and it's been going on for a long time, these legal battles and disputes around who can use the name. Have been going on for decades and people have strong opinions, and the articles about them. I like, I'd never want to make a light of something like that, this because
it is people's livelihoods. Oh sure, yeah, but the articles around them are kind of like and then this person through shade this person, and it's.
Just it's a lot of drama. It is, it is. It comes off very dramatic and again, yes it is serious, but it's sort of reported on like a reality TV show and I'm like, what is going on? Yeah?
Exactly, yeah, exactly.
Other serious note. As with many agricultural products, climate change is affecting all of production. Recent droughts in places like Spain, France and Morocco have caused a drop in Kalamada crop yields. For example, in twenty twenty three, due to like weird temperatures and low rainfall, the oil producing segment of the Kalamada region was down about a third of its usual crop. I didn't see a number for the table producing areas,
but still researchers are working on it though. The EU actually launched an all of Climate project in twenty twelve to help test technologies for like adaptation to and mitigation of climate change around the Mediterranean and specifically all of
growing regions. The city of Kalamada is participating in a EU mission for one hundred cities to go climate neutral by twenty thirty, and farmers are integrating measures like solar power, optimized water use, reduction of plant waste through composting up, further boosting of soil health through crop irrigation with like nitrogen fixing legomes, etc.
Yeah, people are definitely really thinking about this.
Oh yeah, yeah, ways.
To mitigate these things, and you can just tell people are very passionate about it. Oh yeah, even in the EU dispute, people really care about this product.
Yeah, it's really all of the olive oil are really integral to the Mediterranean basin. Too many Mediterranean basin diets and and and cultures and and so. Yeah, like it's it's really cool to see the work being done, you know, upsetting that it has to happen, but but really cool to see the work being done.
Yep, as usual, it's sad that it's it's necessary, but glad that it's happening. Yeah. But yes, listeners, we would love to hear from you if you've been to oh yeah, Kalamada if you've been to the festival we mentioned.
Yes, I understand that Kalamada City is also really full of cats. I understand that it is a like like a like a outdoor cat haven city. So let me know, yes, I mean, let us know, but let me know personally.
All of it's welcome. We would love it. Any of your favorite uses.
Of calaun Oh, yes, yeah.
But that is what we have to say about the Kalamada all over now it is.
We do already have some listener mail for you, though, and we are going to get into that as soon as we get back from one more quick break for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back with listens. I feel like they're very bright, even though I think most of my experience with them has been in kind of dark bars, you know what I mean, like darkly litch mm hmm. But they just have such a bright zip that makes me feel like a spring day.
Yeah, it's a brine and the and the again the fruitiness and the snap kind of so good.
They're so good. Oh my gosh, okay, it's great. Well, we've got some to two listener males here that are kind of oddly related. Okay, okay, about chips and cheese, but they're not about the same episode.
Cool, yeah, I love it.
I love it. Okay, So joy wrote camon beer is probably my favorite cheese. I don't remember when I first had it, but I do remember one evening when I was living in Warsaw. I was running low on food and didn't feel like doing a grocery run. Some of my remaining food items were canon beer and pear. I sliced them both up and topped the pear with the cheese. The creaminess of the canon Bear and the slight sourness of the pear combined into one of the most delicious
things I've ever made. I'm currently living in Taiwan. The Seven Eleven's here carry a Korean brand of cheese flavored cookies. One is Cheddar flavored and the other is Camon Bear. They are a delicious, thought slightly odd, sweet treat. And Joyce sent pictures of these products, and I'm very intrigued. I Camon bear chip.
Cookie cookie not even a chip, It's a cookie.
Oh, cookie makes more sense to me. I don't know why I thought it was a chip. Well, I think it's the picture on the bag looks like a chip.
Oh well, then you know better than I do.
Sure, well, who knows, I mean, I don't know, but I think that it makes sense. I can see a canon bear snack item like this whatever. It may be a triangular snack item, but also camm beer and pear. Oh yes, absolutely sure. That's one of the like instances in life when it seems so simple and it's one of the most magnificent things.
Oh yeah, Oh, those moments are so good.
They are they really are.
I don't think I've ever specifically tried that before, but the next time pairs are in season, that is a thing I'm making a mental note. Yes, yeah, and I'll have to look into like, like we really I really need to look in more into these cheese flavored cookies and or chips, because this is fascinating, Like sweet slash savory cheese products are not really a thing that we do in the United States, and I love that other places do them because I'm like, can you bring that here? Can you?
Right?
Can you do that for me? I mean I could do it myself, but I would like if I could just yeah, get into the store Christine wrote, sadly, I can't answer the question about the different types of cheese doritos in Australia. Corn is one of the many foods that hates me, so I avoid corn and corn products, and that means I haven't eaten Doritos for years. I'm honestly not sure I ever have. I would probably like the plane original one's best because I always found other
flavored corn chips too much. As you probably found in your research, Doritos in Australia have to compete with the locally developed CC's of corn chips. These were first marketed in the early nineteen eighties by chip manufacturer Smith's and were an instant hit. Doritos were manufactured under license by snack giant Arnit's share Arnits soon and the corn chip wars were on. Like everything, Australians have strong opinions about which is best. My memory of CC is far stronger.
This is quite possibly because of the ads. The Smith's Company ads of the nineteen eighties were quite something. Ccs were introduced with the tagline you can't Say No, which is still in use today, and the ads were really, really weird. It honestly would not surprise me if the first ad creator had indulged in some mushrooms as he developed the concept, and the Smith's executives said, we don't get it, but we love it, so do them all like that. Just make sure you keep the bondage. In
the nuns. Many of the ads featured people with exploding heads, and there was almost always people tied up and a pair of CC addicted nuns, and those nuns are still in some of the ads. Thanks to the confusing round of corporate mergers, takeovers, divestments and rebrands, ccs are now
manufactured by Snack Brands Australia, not Smith's. Dorito's have returned to PepsiCo Australia, who now own all the Smith's varieties not owned by Snack Brands, and as far as I can determine, Smith's and Dorito's are produced in the same plant. I hope someone can clear up the mystery of the different cheese flavors of Dorito's for you. I'd risk the intestinal distress, but to be honest, I was never really enamored of corn chips in the first place.
It okay, don't put your girl.
Yeah no, no, no, don't do it. Don't do it. Yeah, especially if you don't really like them. That's yeah, Yeah, that's a lot, that's a lot. I need to look up these ads now, because.
They signed it like a wild time. I was reading this, like wait, what, wait, what? We've got to look into this? Yeah, I have so many questions.
Although I'm I am glad that that other places. Every time I see advertising from anywhere else, I'm like, oh, We're not the only ones. Ads are bonkers everywhere, Okay, cool?
Yeah?
Yeah, And I mean I'm sure if I searched my brain, I could come up with something pretty easily that was equally bizarre. This sounds like it is is, yeah, but it does sound quite especially for them to still be doing it.
Right, Yeah, that they that they at no point went like, okay, let's take these drug addled ads off the air and perhaps do something that makes sense for corn chips. Nah.
No, I mean that kind of fits with Dorito's.
Does it doesn't not?
I know this isn't specifically Dorito's that you're talking about here, which is very interesting, all these corporate mergers and confusions, but yes, it does that whole vibe of the Douredo esque chip. This this falls in line with for sure. Oh yeah, but I do hope. Another listener responds and answers the question of the Dorito's flavors in Australia.
Oh yeah, or anywhere.
Anywhere, anywhere. We want to know. It's very important and we'll look into these ads.
Oh yeah, I the power of corn chips compels me.
Yeah, yes, me as well. Oh well. In the meantime, thanks to both of these listeners you're writing in. If you would like to write to us, you can or email is hello at saverpod dot com.
We're also on social media. You can find us on Instagram and blue Sky at savor pod, and we do hope to hear from you. Savor is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks us always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots more good things are coming your way.