Olive

and when in the 1920s the Martini with its green olive became the Jazz Era drink of choice, and the black ripe olive became a staple of the ‘relish tray’, olives were absolved.

Croatia

Italy

The entire Mediterranean seems to rise out of the sour, pungent taste of black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat and wine, a taste as old as cold water. Only the sea itself seems as ancient a part of the region as the olives and its oil, that like no other products of nature, have shaped civilisations from remotest antiquity to the

Olive Pastes

And then late in the 1980s, when a growing number of Americans began to realize what olive oil could do for them, Californians again noticed the trees that remained.7

An olive tree does not reach its full productivity for 35 years and it is a plant that can endure for centuries.

Up until the 1970s pharmacies were the only place in Britain where one could find olive oil. It was stocked as a laxative.

Behind this new passion stands a paradox: there is in fact no particular, precise place where this Mediterranean Diet resides. Reams of scientific and gastronomic literature haven’t proved there is any such thing as a Mediterranean cultural identity but meanwhile scientists, chefs, nutritionists, food manufacturers and government health advisers ha