Zeytin

Century Year old Olive in Ancient city of Lagina, Mugla

October came and left. We haven’t come to the cafe to work in nearly a month, due to successive events of my husband traveling for work, bringing back a sickness back, giving it to me, and then having to get the olives harvested before the real rains begin.

For the better part of a work week, I worked by myself during the afternoons to gather the remaining olives. The previous week, his parents, grandmother and aunt and uncle came to help while we were sick. They managed to collect about half the olives and bag them up. Once we were better however, they decided a trip to Istanbul was in order and charged us with the deed to finish before the weekend and ensuing rains. I don't believe the rain itself necessarily the issue, rather once the olives have been collected, they can sit for only so long before starting to spoil. Luckily for him, or rather unluckily depending, my husband had a prevailing arm injury that would prevent him from assisting, but not in tossing olives at me while I worked. Classic timing. Yet most days working alone, after I dismounted my rather large equine, I found the process to be quite calming. The fruit grows on the thin flexible branches, almost reminiscent of the hanging fronds of a Willow. Using a small plastic rake, or rather a large comb, the grape sized fruits can be teased from their dwelling and let to fall onto the plastic sheet below. With every pull of the comb, you wait for the corresponding plunk or two as the olives kiss the ground. No plunk? Keep combing until the only sound is the crinkle of plastic and the crunch of leaves. Your neck will inevitably numb to the upward angle while your preen. If you're lucky, the sun will shine and dance through the leaves, instead of blinding you as you squint to acquire your next spoils. Inevitably you'll end up with those indignant stragglers nesting in the topmost towering branches, to which you'll wag a scolding finger and move on. You can come back for them later when you finish up the pruning.

Most here prune back their olive trees every other year. Starting at the base to remove all the suckers, and then any extremely low hanging branches. Next open up the middle of the foliage to allow air flow and light penetration. "Enough to let a bird fly through," one of our neighbors advised. Any new branches growing straight up or down are almost always cut, to encourage lateral growth. Further affirmed when the topmost branches are trimmed to prevent the tree from growing too tall and leggy.

Our trees are somewhere around a decade in age, with trunks now big enough to exceed the width of both my stretched hands. I only wish I could come back in a hundred years and see how fat, gnarled and quirky they'll become. They'll be breathtaking. I recall one majestic tree in particular that stays in my mind. We were on a trip to a nearby ancient city, Lagina, where the famed Turkish archaeologist Osman Hamdi Bey worked. This monolith resided in the center of a grove of younger trees. Towering above as a benevolent mother watches over her brood. They were all surrounded below by sections of broken marble columns, lined in formal rows. The immensity of the scene was striking, with only the Redwoods of California holding a similar standing in my memory. The life this tree has been the stage for, the communities that have shared in it's wealth. Soaking in sun rays all those hundreds of years ago. I must have a couple pictures of this tree, but photos never evoke the same feeling. I digress.

We ended up bagging just over 550 pounds of olives this year...according to the man who weighed and processed them at the little local olive oil pressing factory. I suggested to my husband after loading up them that we should at least weigh one of the bags so we have at least a rough estimate of how much we are going to get bamboozled. As much as I would love to believe that we have honest neighbors, we, really mostly myself, are frequently overcharged at the local bazaars and vendors. They know I’m foreign, and I’m generally a pushover. I just smile politely as I pull out my wallet and hand the money over. Of course not everyone is like this, and we have met some of the most genuinely kind and generous souls during our time here. At the end of the day though, I’m not going to argue with someone running a small family owned business. If they want to hike up their prices a little here and there according to who they’re doing business with, they have the right to do so. If we disagree, we can take our business elsewhere. I also withhold the right to complain just a wee bit to myself and whomever comes across this corner of the internet. Consider me petty. Leave if you may.

To explain, the pallet we unloaded the bags onto was never tared before being raised by the forklift scale. The man entered a tare weight of 50 pounds, or 25 kilos. We both knew that was a bit of an exaggeration, mentioned so, and he sort of mumbled his reasoning that all pallets weigh a different amount and continued to raising the olives. I have to admit, any initial annoyance of from the tare weight was quickly replaced by the giddiness of seeing 251 kilos light up on the scale. We both gave a little gasp, and handed over the containers we had brought to fill with oil. We presented an empty water cooler to which the man replied we were gonna need a bigger boat. We would come back the next day and they would fill any additional oil into large tin cans. According to general internet consensus, 3-5 kilos of fruit should yet about one liter of oil, so in perfect conditions we could expect anywhere from 50-80 liters of oil. Of course after natural loss, and any skimming off the top from the factory, we would receive less. I had my fingers crossed that our olives were the oiliest in all the land and would produce a miraculous amount topping over 100 liters. My husband predicted about 30 liters. He, per usual, God bless his cranium, was right on target. We left the next day with 33 liters of oil.

When completing the final transaction, we got to go inside the factory. No door, just a wide opening with half of the plastic flaps you usually see leading to the warehouses of grocery stores, long ago torn off to make way or fallen over time. The inside was warm, steamy and thick with the aroma of olive oil. Thick doesn't feel nearly descriptive enough though. Immediately upon entering, your head began to swim in this delicious lightly sweet fog. Intoxicating and enchanting. A steady stream of olives, shining bright greens, pinks and purples, tumbled in from the shoot outside into an open vat in the floor. Large rounded silvery structures stood around, churning and chortling, clicking and whooshing. This felt like a miniature version of Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory, Turkish Edition. In place of Oopaloompas, were several young men in hoodies and wellies sitting or kneeling by the final press, making sure all the liquid gold made it's way safely into their labelled receptacles. There was a young boy in a Nebraska sweater, in something like a Zoltar Booth surrounded by stacks of notebooks and written receipts from years past, waiting to take our payment. At this particular factory, which is apparently the norm for most, you can either pay a processing fee or they will take 1/10 of your total oil as payment. We had agreed the day prior to have them take the tithe, but there was further light squabbling when the owner came over as they informed us that they hadn't separated any for themselves, so there was a fee of 1100 liras to pay, including the extra 100 for the tin can. Of course we're not going to go to the trouble to have them separate their share, so we paid and left smiling. The owner also wouldn't let me carry out the jug myself, as my husband's arm was injured , I intended to carry them myself, and insisted to load them for us. Chivalry not undead here, though perhaps old chauvinism veiled as such (I can never decide). We ended up paying about 75 cents per liter of oil, so really we had nothing to complain about. Were we bamboozled? Perhaps gently. C'est la vie.

The North American Olive Oil Association calculates that the average American only consumes about 1 liter per year, while Greeks in stark contrast consume about 24. I'd say we fall somewhere in the middle, but certainly on the higher end, so hypothetically 33 liters split between two Turkish families should be enough to last us through most of the year. The cherry here being, we finally got to experience the true taste of our humble orchard's fruit. In years past we had simply dropped of our olives to be pressed and taken the equivalent oil from the factory. Thus receiving a mix of the olives within the area. As soon we we arrived home, we opened the tin and poured some into spoons. Not dissimilar from Mary Poppins pouring medicine for her charges. Cold pressed, and essentially non-processed, the oil was an opaque light green gold, and so so smooth. Only lightly bitter at the very end. Damn, so good. Shooketh.

The first year we harvested, I believe we had about 40 kilos, and maybe around 70 the second. Last year, being abroad we didn't participate in the harvest, and this year with over 250 kilos? The trees we care for are ramping up their growth in a fantastic way. Soon enough we will have a back supply to give away or sell, or bath in if we fancy.