A Painting A Week 119 - Kalamata Olives, Koroni

For Sale - 22nd January 2013
Kalamata Olives
Size: 15 x 21cm
(Postage and handling included)

We're coming to the end of the olive picking season here in the Peloponnese  The area, since November, has been a whirr of chainsaws, chattering locals, and lovely olive wood smoke - it gives a whole new fresh aroma to your towels! The roads are cluttered with tractors hauling their  loads to the local olive press with exhausted workers perched on top of their big hessian sacks of olives. We 'helped' some friends of ours for 2-3 days at the beginning of the season, and got a taste of the whole process.  From the cutting off of the large heavily laden branches with the chainsaw, to the shredding of the olives off the branches. Each tree has a huge green net laid underneath to catch the olives as they're whacked off the trees (whacking is quite permissible and there are even special long forks for this very reason), or shredded off the branches. There is a very clever portable machine for the shredding process too.

The visit to the olive press was a great experience - all those millions of teensy olives travelling up and down conveyor belts and through various bits of shining machinery and, at the other end, out pours beautiful thick  rich green olive oil.... immediately ready for cooking or the table.

 I was impressed when I discovered these two huge piles of debris at the back of the Olive Press. One is leaves and twigs, and the other is the skins, pips etc. I'm very pleased to say that the latter is made into pellets, something similar to 'heat beads' for burning in your fireplace over the winter - a rather 'green' initiative - well done Greece!

Kalamata is our nearest city - a 40 minute drive along a windy narrow road dotted with villages, tractors,  rubbish bins, and sometimes even donkeys, not to forget Greek drivers. Kalamata olives are reknown world-wide for their rich and fruity flavour. These table olives are almond shaped, large, purple to black olives and are usually preserved in either wine vinegar, or olive oil. The chainsaw method is not used for these, as they have to be picked carefully to avoid bruising. These are the olives in my painting, hand picked by me!

Kalamata Olives, slitted and ready to go into a brine

Koroni Extra Virgin Olive Oil is pressed from the smaller Koroneiki olive. These come exclusively from the Koroni area where we live, which boasts the highest quality olives for making olive oil. These olives are much smaller than the Kalamata olives and when harvested are a mixture of purple, reddish, green and yellow. The trees at the end of the harvest tend to take on a rather haphazard lopsided look, but soon recover to their former glory with the new spring growth.  There's nothing like looking down on the swaying trees in the afternoon breeze - all those silvery branches.

Koroneiki Olives

Our view towards the east over the olive trees, with the Monastery and the Church of Panagia Eleistria

If you would like to buy this painting, please click on this link to my  Art Weekly Online Shop, or if you'd rather deal with me direct, please email me at either jackiesinfrance@hotmail.com or jackie@jackiesherwood.com.