Olives

I’ve been recently learning to appreciate that small ovoid fruit of a certain ubiquitous Mediterranean tree, that biblical of food stuffs, the olive. I’ve always kinda liked them: as a kid grabbing a whole slim, green-lidded jar from the fridge, unable to control myself, eating half a jar of those kind with red cubes that I always wished were candy mechanically punched into the middle, and feeling ill.
I ate copious amounts of olives as I travelled through their native land last fall. It was hard to avoid them and their by-product, olive oil. Like, eaten with every meal. The staple of the land after bread. This week I’ve been savouring, like really taking notice, of three Sicilian olives a day from a small batch I bought at Thriftys and have, for the first time, learned to understand the true meaty flesh these things are made of. Their texture is interesting, unlike other fruit. Stiff enough to almost sort of crack between your teeth, but soft enough that you can bite through them, leave teeth marks. Like biting into stiff cake, or playdough. Olives feel really good to bite into if you’re thinking about it.