Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Olives

I bring those along when we are traveling.

Bitter, tough, not edible.

Thank you Ed.

I love all forms of olives but it seems the fancy restaurants have a secret wholesaler set aside for martinis.

I think you could write a book about the GD things.

Only olives I've had are the pimento stuffed ones from the grocery store.

Always have a jar in the fridge. Love 'em.

Black olives can also be green ones that are allowed to ripen on the tree. And they are way better when picked ripe and cured "naturally" as opposed to the lye method. At least, I think the ones I have done that way are better than those canned ones from the store. It takes awhile, but like homemade applesauce and kraut., I'd rather eat home cured olives than commercial ones. But I no longer live near a ready supply.

That said, there's a big jar of Kalamata ones in the fridge and others in the pantry. And a big jug of oil from Costco handy at all times too.

There are lots of martini books.

Sam's Club sells some garlic/Jalepeno stuffed ones that last me a week or 2 cause I'm grabbing a few every time I open the fridge.

Love the plain old green olives cut up on pizza too.

I like black but Castelvetrano are my favorite, I need to buy whole instead of pitted to slow me down.

Don’t like them Spanish queens.

I’ve heard they are inedible, or nearly so, off the branch. Never seen or tried them that way.

I bartended at a martini bar years ago. Stuffed a few hundred pounds worth, at least.
Didn’t care for them then. Now I can sit down and wax half a jar.

The local grocers have olive bars with all kinds of olives available. While they are not all equal, I haven’t found a bad one yet.

Mooner, I can guarantee if you take one off the branch, especially green, and try to eat it, you will spit it our almost immediately. The ripe ones are slightly better, you may last a second or two.

I lived for years within a few blocks of "Olive Street" in our neighborhood and used to party in the olive grove there.

Olives are great and the ones in the jar from the store are okay, but the best come in bulk sold in Italian, French or Greek markets. Have a friend back in Illinois that makes his own each year from fresh ones. Said they did it when he was a kid in Italy and they are the best.

Had my hand on a flat of black olives at Costco yesterday.


Then I got distracted by that lady cooking them little mini sausages in the middle of the aisle. Dammit!!!

Even better is when the gal has the bbq pork loin in the bag, all ready to eat, just pop it in the microwave oven. Right over there on aisle 6 in the frozen section.

Geno,

When I started work at the Shell Martinez refinery I was assigned an inspector to work for me. He was a Greek raised in Sudan. The refinery property had loads of olive trees so annually we would pick and he would take them home, soak them in lye, etc. and return a couple jars to me. This in my early days of enjoying a dry martini.

Ed,

Had friends in SoCal that would do that, Later in life I lived in the Las Vegas area and there were feral olive trees around. I gathered some a couple of years. Did some salt curing, plain old water and brine. Never tried the lye thing though. And I was always glad to get ripe ones before they hit the ground.

I realized then I had missed out on all those free goodies while I was out drinking wine in the olive grove in HS.

Love all olives, always got some in the fridge.

Favourite: Really fresh Kalamatas or jumbo green, stuffed with blue cheese.

YMMV

Nope - BLACK only...

Same here - don't mind black, but green olives trigger an instant gag reflex and heaving for me. I discovered that while trying my first martini and I hadn't even tried to eat the damn olive...