What Are Olives and How Can I Use Them?

Oil cured black olives (pictured above) have significantly more flavor than brined olives.

Olives are high in monounsaturated fat, iron, Vitamin E, and dietary fiber. Naturally ripened purple/black appearing olives contain anthocyanins.

This does not include artificially ripened "black olives" that are frequently canned and sent to grocery stores. There is also an effect that typical processing has on the quantity and type of anthocyanins contained in olives.

Kalamata olives are normally brined, packed in olive oil or pickled in wine vinaigrette.

Unlike most green and black olives, Kalamata olives are a deep, rich aubergine in color. When they are soaked in vinegar or brined, they may appear almost dark brown or black. On the tree, these purple almond-shaped fruits are hard to miss because of their beautiful color. They also tend to pack more meat than the average black variety.

Pimento stuffed green olives are unripe olives cured in brine and packed with a sliver of red pimento pepper where the pit used to be. The olive brings a firm, salty, briny bite, and the pimento adds a mild sweetness and a flash of red.

They are the classic cocktail olive and a pantry workhorse for salads and relishes and a backbone of Spanish and Latin cooking.

The stuffing is usually pimento paste piped into a pitted olive. You will also find them stuffed with garlic or almonds the same way, and spicier ones packed with jalapeño.

Greek olives are tree-ripened olives cured in brine, the kind that taste boldly of salt and ripe fruit with the wood-and-vinegar tang of real fermentation. Kalamata is the famous one: a deep purple-black, almond-shaped olive with firm, meaty flesh. The category also covers green Halkidiki and the wrinkly, oil-cured throumba.

What sets them apart is the cure. Greek olives are brined or salt-cured slowly, so they keep their fruity bite and their pit. That is the opposite of the bland canned "black olive" you slide onto a finger.

You will find them whole with the pit in, plus pitted and pre-sliced jars. Most are packed in brine, sometimes a little oil, occasionally with herbs and garlic.

Spanish-style green olives are unripe olives, picked while still firm and green, then cured to strip out their natural bitterness and packed in a salty brine. They are the familiar firm, meaty olives sold in jars, often pitted and stuffed with a sliver of red pimiento.

What makes them "Spanish style" is the cure. The raw olives are first soaked in a lye solution that breaks down the bitter compound oleuropein, then rinsed and left to ferment in brine for weeks or months. That lactic fermentation gives them their tangy, slightly sour, savory bite.

The most common variety is the Manzanilla, a small to medium oval olive with a clean, salty flavor and crisp flesh. It is the standard cocktail and tapas olive across Spain and well beyond.