With the help of modern technology, we can enjoy table olives which have been crafted in various ways. If you want to enjoy them without taking care to remove the pits, they can be ready-pitted for you. An added advantage of the ready-pitted olives is that they can be stuffed with an assortment of fillings, limited only by the imagination of the chef. You can also buy them cut, cracked, halved, sliced or even pasted. Whether chosen carefully from an extensive olive bar or bought in any of a diverse array of packaging forms, olives always take pride of place in any epicure's refrigerator. After all, a Martini can be shaken or stirred, but it is never quite complete without a toothpick-speared crunchy olive or two resting in the glass.
If they can elevate a Martini, imagine what a handful of olives can do to your pizza, your home-made bread, or that recipe you have been trying to put a twist on in order to impress your dinner guests. Their succulent flesh doesn't lose its texture when baked or cooked. On the contrary, their distinctive aroma is enhanced with the heat applied during the cooking or baking procedure, adding a palatable pizazz to a multitude of your culinary creations.
Ignore the cliché that "if it tastes bad, it must be good for you"; table olives prove it disastrously wrong. They are a very good source of copper, iron, fiber, and vitamin E. If you are worried about their high fat content, rest assured that most of it is oleic acid, a unique monosaturated fatty acid which is associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. And as if that weren't enough, in terms of their diverse range of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory nutrient content, olives are nothing short of astounding. They are such a nutrient-packed food that table olives have documented health benefits extending to most of our body systems. It's no wonder that one of the safest, all-natural, and fast flu remedies backed by science is olive leaf extract.
We don't know exactly when the olive was first cultivated. What we do know is that without the olive tree, the Greek civilization wouldn't have flourished to such an extent as to be rightfully considered the cradle of Western civilization. That's food for thought next time you allow an olive to burst its flavors on your palate.
