Olive Harvest

I have been looking forward to being a part of our family’s harvest of olives ever since we decided we were going to move to Rome for the year!!! I’ve never experienced an olive harvest and I just knew it would be something I would enjoy. Since I read all of the Little House on the Prairie books as a girl, I guessed I had an idea how the day would go.

Luckily for us, the olives ripened by the last weekend in October for our arrival. We spent a gorgeous fall weekend in the countryside of Ascoli Piceno, harvesting olives for one “branch” of our family (I couldn’t help the pun! It was too eeeasy…) There are two other branches of our family, who will begin harvesting their olives next.

The weekend weather couldn’t have been more perfect! It was beautifully sunny, but not hot. We wore our sunglasses with the sunshine warming our backs. The smell of autumn was in the air, which was a welcome surprise because that’s one thing we all miss about being home in the Northwest - the smell of fall. Living in the hardscape of Rome, we haven’t detected a smell of fall, nor have we seen any fall color in our trees – they are all still green and leafy!

The deciduous trees were in full color in Ascoli. Brilliant oranges and yellows dotted the hillsides. The tomatoes in the gardens have shriveled, the beans are done producing, the figs are a memory, but the garden lettuces and greens were lush and the kaki (persimmon) trees were overflowing with fruit to be harvested next month.

Each silvery, grey olive tree was full of olives. A large net was spread beneath each tree to catch the olives as they fell. Bamboo poles were staked on the hillsides to hold the netting up for the rolly-pollies. Once the netting was in place, our two kids would begin stripping the lower branches (yes, we bribed them with a euro amount per tree), a male adult would climb the tree to strip the mid branches and another male adult would operate “the teeth.”

This is where my vision of Little House on the Prairie ended. My daughter and I were the only women contributing to the harvest. We weren’t to do any of the “manly” duties and we weren’t really acknowledged in the grove by the men. It was almost like they were embarrassed by us.

Don’t get me wrong, the women of our family were working very hard cooking grand meals for us to consume at lunch and dinner (that would have been fun to do too!), not to mention the clean up of the dishes. However, the women didn’t take one step into the grove. I believe my daughter and I are now considered complete female oddities… What’s new? Life as an American woman in Italia goes on!

Giulio had the coolest tool to assist with the harvest. I have no idea what it is called, so I’m calling it “the teeth.” The teeth consists of a long wand with two small rakes on one end, that vibrate together when the trigger on the other end is grasped. When the teeth were placed amongst the branches, the teeth shook the olives off the branches, without mashing them. The teeth were attached to a long air hose, which in turn, was attached to an air compressor. Pretty darn nifty!

After the tree had been stripped, the adults lifted the netting and rolled the olives into a heap, then poured them into a large burlap sack. Over two days, we filled two large burlap sacks. Unfortunately, that is as far as the process could go for us city folk. Sunday afternoon, we had to depart for Rome, as our son had to finish preparing for a weeklong adventure with his school.

We were told the olives would be taken to a friend who has an olive press. He has a machine that will sort the olives from the leaves, wash them, then press the olives and bottle the oil for the family’s use. Hopefully, when we return in December, we’ll enjoy a taste of the oil and the most famous and delicious dish, Olive Ascolane. Oh, and maybe some cinghiale!

My husband and I agreed, it felt wonderful to be out in the countryside doing a bit of manual labor! We don’t have the opportunity in the city. And another appreciation we had - all of the people of Italy it must take to harvest the millions of olive trees in Italia (and Greece, and Spain, and Portugal, etc!) We know the commercial growers have special machinery, but so many people grow olives for their own personal consumption. What a unique experience to be a part of!