Olives

The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit

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by Mort Rosenblum

North Point Press

Due/Published November 1996, 336 pages, cloth

ISBN 0865475032

This book is available in paper, but you might want to consider it in cloth. If not, click here for the paper edition

Aficionados find in an olive a portrait in miniature of the richest parts of the world. Part memoir, (no, not on the part of the olive), part travelogue, part history, part cookbook, and with a more than a dose of worshipful and witty homage, this is a delightful book. In 1986 Rosenblum bought a small overgrown farm in Provence. With it, he discovered were 150 neglected olive trees, each several hundred years old. After he and his neighbors helped bring the grove back to life, Rosenblum became obsessed with olives, their role in history and civilization, their cultivation, culture, their place in the library, the kitchen, and the heart. Among olive growers and oil makers, he found a whole new world of humor and wisdom. From Provence, he traveled to the outposts of olivedom. He gives us the olive from Andalusia to Israel, from Morocco to the Greek Islands (ah Folegandros . . .), from Tuscan palazzos to California, Mexico to Bosnia. Along the way he finds local politics reflected in the olive groves and uprooted trees in Israel, the Mafia grip on the Italian trade, Spanish growers forced to label their oil as Italian, and poor growers in Tunisia storing their finest in Pepsi bottles. He records the continuing romance and passion olive growers feel for their work, whether they pick by hand, by whacking the limbs, or with a goat horn. Even if you don't like olives, you just might after reading this book.