Olives - love them or hate them?

JAS_OH1 said:
Who started with those black canned ones? They just taste so much better out of a jar!
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I love those cheap little black sliced canned ones. That’s what I specifically put on pizza.

I used to wonder what kind of olives they were, because the can just says “olives” in the ingredient, and after some research, I found out that they’re the same as the little green ones, just artificially fast-ripened, so they look ripe and taste more green.

My usual olive is the big green queen olives, pimento-stuffed or unstuffed. A lot of the stuffed varieties, I don’t care for. Cheese-stuffed…the cheese is usually mushy. Jalapeno-stuffed isn’t bad, because there’s a little crunch there.

Availability of olives is one of those things that’s blossomed here in the last 25 years or so - when I was a kid, the grocery store carried two kinds: the little green pimento-stuffed ones and the little canned black ones that are used for pizza and tacos here, to this day. Not even Kalamata.

Now, even at my local small Kroger, there are several varieties jarred, and they also have a selection of olive-bar olives available. If I go to a big Kroger or (as karadekoolaid mentions, the international market), there are proper olive bars, and dozens upon dozens of varieties to choose from.

…but if I’m eating black olives, I still prefer those .59¢ cans of sliced black olives! :laugh:
 
JAS_OH1 said:
I am planning on going through that area on our way south but we won't have time to stop and shop...
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That’s a shame, I was going to mention the Eastgate location won’t be terribly far out of your way, but then it’s the time spent once you get there that’ll get you - but you could have all the olives! :laugh:
 
TastyReuben said:
That’s a shame, I was going to mention the Eastgate location won’t be terribly far out of your way, but then it’s the time spent once you get there that’ll get you - but you could have all the olives! :laugh:
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Maybe instead of going to have a drink and/or a snack we should go shopping!
 
I didn't like olives as a kid.
I could just about handle them when sliced on a pizza, but not too much in one go.
These days, I love them :)
We can get them at the supermarket, packed in plastic in brine, or sometimes stuffed in cans. But these days I buy them at the Lebanese shop.
 
JAS_OH1 said:
Maybe instead of going to have a drink and/or a snack we should go shopping!
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PM’ing you… :whistling:

On the olive front, just remembered my single favorite olives of all time, let me see if I can find the post…found it:

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It’s those grilled and marinated green olives - we both love those, and they’re packed in oil instead of brine. I could eat that entire jar in a single sitting.
 
I love those sliced black olives in cans with pepperoni on pizza. The older sister of a good friend got me started on those as an early teen.

One of my favorite snacks is a piece of Parmigiano Reggiano with Castelvetrano/Sicilian olives, but that is a huge sodium bomb and makes my ankles swell more often than not, so it's a rare snack.

I also like gaeta olives, they aren't quite black, but a really dark purple black. Chef Mario Batali introduced us to them.

I'll also admit I love the pimento stuffed green olives. DDs cat used to love them as well. She'd put a bib on him and fix him a plate of chopped olives on our kitchen bar. He'd sit on 1 of the stools and daintily eat his olives.

I could sit and eat just the olive salad that I make to go on

Recipe - Muffaletta
 
Oh yes - the olive mixture for muffalata is sensational! It's been years since I made one, but I seem to recall it was Emeril Lagasse's recipe.
There was a time, about 15 years ago, when I made marinated olives for a couple of friends who had gourmet shops. I'll have to dig out the recipes and post them.
 
I have a jar of muffuletta mix, and as the saying goes, “I put that sh!t on everything!” - pizza, eggs, sandwiches, crackers, etc.

Funny thing: my dad wouldn’t even eat spaghetti because it was too “foreign” for him…but he’d eat those cheap pimento-stuffed olives by the jar. I have no idea how, where, or when he developed a taste for them, but he loved them.
 
karadekoolaid said:
Oh yes - the olive mixture for muffalata is sensational! It's been years since I made one, but I seem to recall it was Emeril Lagasse's recipe.
There was a time, about 15 years ago, when I made marinated olives for a couple of friends who had gourmet shops. I'll have to dig out the recipes and post them.
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The recipe i posted is based on The Central Grocery's recipe, where the sandwich originated.
 
medtran49 said:
The recipe i posted is based on The Central Grocery's recipe, where the sandwich originated.
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I had "Sicily"in my head, but having read the info in the web, now that makes sense! A ginormous sandwich filled with all sorts of goodies and that divine olive salad - what's not to like about mortadella, salami,coppa, Parma ham and cheese?
 
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