Olive My Love

On October 18, we partook in Jordan's autumn activity: olive picking. The area of Jordan and Palestine boasts one of the finest oil-producing olive cultivars in the world: the revered Nabali (referred to as baladi, or "local", locally). We drove out to Mafraq, close to where my brother-in-law bought some land. There was a large orchard of olive trees. Being a much better negotiator than me, my brother-in-law managed to convince them to sell the olives to us for 0.35 JD/kg. We picked 100 kg worth of olives that day, but only 20 kg was for us.

Olives start out green and then eventually ripen to dark brown, purplish-black, or pure black. Commercial black olives are often artificially blackened. Raw green olives taste horribly bitter and dry out one's mouth to the point where it is difficult to even swallow. Raw black olives are not quite as bad. Nonetheless, all olives require a lot of work before they are ready for consumption.

We placed a large, firm sheet underneath us and proceeded to gently tug along olive-laden branches until all the branches on one side of the tree were empty. We then moved to the next side of the tree.


After picking olives, the next step is to crack them open using a hand mill (Ar. jaroosheh). On the way back, we found a shop with a mill outside and cracked up our 20 kg.

Next, we soaked the cracked olives in water until the morning of October 23, changing the water periodically. We then put them in their vats along with fresh water, salt, peppers, quartered limes, and a couple grape leaves.

By October 26, the cracked up olives (as some of them made it through the mill unscathed) were ready. (The uncracked ones are still bitter.) The result has to be the best tasting olives I've ever eaten, alhamdulillah.