THE OLIVES GO ROUND AND ROUND

This is a duty entry. I am not fond of photographs of machinery, not even in olive presses, but I will do a series on the whole process. Some of it is very pretty.

The process for making olive oil is quite exciting but I think this pic is a big yawn. It is of the two giant granite stones that grind the olives. Before the olives go into this, however, they first go up one flight where they are washed. Then they go into this vast basin and are reduced to a paste by the turning stones. The paste is then spread on a tower of mats and squeezed.

Being squeezed produces a vile brown liquid made up, as it is, of skins, flesh and olive stones. This liquid goes into a centrifuge and out of this comes the most beautiful and glorious green olive oil. There is nothing like new olive oil mopped up with a bit of fresh bread.

The frantoio (olive press) was quiet today and I wandered all around it. Once the pressings begin it will become chaos. Some growers guard their olives as if they were gold coins. They go upstairs and watch them being washed, follow them down to the press, watch the paste being spread onto the mats and then they know, for sure, that the wonderful liquid that emerges is made from their own superior olives and not some others which are certain to be inferior.

Himself does not wait around. Each macinata (pressing) takes about one hour but then there might be a long wait beforehand because the man in charge may fall behind. Growers get cranky as they wait, tempers flare and all in all, it is a bad scene.

I have other pictures of gleaming stainless steel machinery but as I can only use one, it is best to see the grinding stones. I will go back into the bun fight when olives are being pressed.