the story of Casa Azul

As mentioned last week, it’s now olive harvest time at Casa Azul. We discovered we actually had 23 olive trees on our plot but as they hadn’t been tended for five or more years quite a few were in a bad way and many still fairly inaccessible because of brambles. However we did manage to access a few and filled up five plastic bins – about 150kgs worth. We were well chuffed.

We had made an appointment at the local press for 3pm on Monday and duly arrived on time. Of course the timings are pretty elastic in these parts but we were surprised that we were only there a couple of hours (our neighbours Bob and Jeanette left the press at 2 am last year after a series of breakdowns at the factory). As expected, our crop was pretty puny compared to everyone else’s and in fact the factory manager at first said it was too small a load for him to process on its own. Often what happens is that farmers come in with their load of olives and they just swap it for oil that has already been pressed. Everything gets mixed in together. It seemed a bit odd to us but plenty of people were doing just that. They got 8 litres of oil for every 100kgs of olives they dropped off.

However, the man in front of us was determined to get the oil from his olives and as it was our first harvest so were we. The manager reluctantly agreed. We were also very proud of the fact that our olives were getting admiring glances from the knowledgeable locals who recognised good quality stuff when they saw it.

Anyway, into a big machine the olives went. Not to actually get pressed – modern machinery doesn’t press the olives (which can take ages), it centrifuges them, or so I was told. I’ll spare the details but our olives went in one end of this huge machine and in less than half an hour, we went round the back to a big tap. I was given the honour to turn it on and out came the purest and virginest liquid gold. We ended up with 14 litres which I don’t think was a bad yield. Mind you 14 litres of oil for 3 days work…but at least it was our oil, I’m sure it will taste all the better for that.

We thought winter, or at the very least autumn had arrived with a bit of rain and a cold spell. In the end it was only enough to fill the small pond and for us to enjoy a log fire for a few days. The large pond will have to wait.

However, the good weather means plenty of other stuff to do down on the farm. Our quinces are turning yellow which means they are ripe and Jackie has already picked the first few to make quince jam. We also plan on making quince cheese when the remainder ripen. Sounds horrible to me but I’ll give it a go.

The oranges are also almost ready. We’ve tasted a few early ripeners and as they are very sweet, they aren’t really good for marmalade so we’ll have to make do with plenty of orange juice for breakfast. As it happens the word marmalade comes from the word marmelo which is Portuguese for quince. If you have any idea how that happened let us know.

Literally in the last couple of days, nets have been appearing round the olive trees of the area. Everyone has decided en masse, that the olives are ready. Of course we turned to our neighbour, Luis, for advice and before we knew it he showed up with two ladders, large sticks, a branch saw and an enormous green net. The idea is very simple. Spread the net under the tree and either shake it, hit it with a stick, or even just pluck the olives by hand until the net is full. Throw out all the branches and leaves and pour into a large receptacle. We started yesterday and have already filled a couple of large plastic bins. We’ve got five to fill and then we take the majority down to the local wine press to make olive oil. That should keep us going for a while. We take out the best and juiciest however to make olives for eating.

By the way, in case you didn’t know, they all start green and turn black. Different varieties are good for either eating or pressing, the blacks generally giving more oil as they are riper. Ours are now mostly black so that’s good. However, they are not the best quality (as the trees have been untended since the house has been empty for 5 years), hence the vast majority will be pressed for oil. You don’t have to separate the greens from the blacks either, it all goes into one mixture.

Does our bounty know no bounds? Next up are the mushrooms. After the rain they started sprouting everywhere and lots of different varieties. We’ve already eaten quite a few of the regular field mushrooms. They are pretty much identical to the ones from Tesco (but bigger, tastier and more irregularly shaped of course!) but we are going to do some research and try to identify the rest before plopping them in the pan.

And finally. We’ve made contact with Jeanette and Bob (who own the cottage where we stayed in May). It was good to see them again, and Jackie was especially pleased to see Dolly (their horse) who has already supplied us with a big pile of manure that will be saved for our raised beds.