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Supercharts

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Supercharts
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Apr 23, 2002
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I am trying to find out why Black Olives come in cans but Green Olives come in glass jars.
 
According to this

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/how_to/the_nonexpert_the_east_coast_olive_conspiracy.php

“The questions are actually related,” Mr. Shaw wrote us. “Olives don’t come to us in edible form straight from the tree. They have to be processed. Black and green olives (which can be the same olives—the color is how they end up, not necessarily how they grow) are processed differently. Green olives are for the most part intended to be eaten raw. They are cured not cooked. This is, I believe, why they don’t typically appear on pizzas. Canned black olives are literally cooked, like most anything else in a can. If you canned green olives, it would cook them, and that’s not what you want for a cured olive meant to be eaten raw. If you tried to cook black olives in jars (the processing is done in the actual vessel in which the olives are sold), you’d break a lot of jars.”
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Huh??

We can get both black and green olives in jars. Do so regularly. They come from Spain and Greece like that, plus we have a good local supply too.

And we have both on pizzas, and in other dishes involving olives. However it is the black ones (Kalamata) that make the VERY best tapenade! Yummo!
 
Olives don’t come to us in edible form straight from the tree.
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Man, did I ever find that out the hard way recently. Just moved down to Melbourne, Australia, where they seem to have every kind of tree just growing around the neighborhood. There's an (black) olive tree just up the road, so I tried one raw. YUCK. :sour:
 
I've always assumed it's because you can't can something in a can without heat. I'm guessing that the heat doesn't agree with green olives, but since black olives are already dead, overripe drops and rejects that nobody in his right mind would ....oh sorry, am I editorializing here?.... so anyway, I'm guessing that the heat doesn't bother black ones. I mean, you can't really spoil a black olive, can you?
 
Oh, I just wondered if it was a practical joke of some kind... ;)
 
Zep said:
Huh??

We can get both black and green olives in jars. Do so regularly. They come from Spain and Greece like that, plus we have a good local supply too.

And we have both on pizzas, and in other dishes involving olives. However it is the black ones (Kalamata) that make the VERY best tapenade! Yummo!
Click to expand...

In many (most?) places in the US, Kalamata olives are not what is meant by "black" oilves. Here, when someone refers to "black olives" they usually mean an olive that is very black, pitted, shiny, soft to the point of mushy, and taste mainly of salt. (God I love 'em!) These are cooked, not cured, as mentioned above.
 
Supercharts said:
I am trying to find out why Black Olives come in cans but Green Olives come in glass jars.
Click to expand...
There once was a canner so canny,
Who was heard to remark to his granny
"A canner can can
Anything that he can,
But a canner can't can a can can he?"

If you go to a market in Italy, you can get black and/or green olives loose i.e. not in a can or a jar. Both varieties taste much better than the canned/jarred versions we get in the UK.
 
What I don't understand is, if you have a can of green olives, how can eat just one or two on the way back from the toilet at 3 a.m.?
 
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