Opson de garde / vegetable tarichos (provisions preserved in brine)

Olives with bay leaf and fennel, preserved for the road

Name: Olives with bay leaf and fennel, preserved for the road
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: Raw untreated olives (green) — 500 g; Coarse sea salt — 100 g per liter of water; Water — about 1 liter; Bay leaves — 4; Fennel seeds — 1 tsp; Thyme, lemon slices, garlic clove — to taste; Olive oil — to cover the surface

PreservingReconstruction🧂 ☕ 🫙moyen30 min (+ 4 weeks fermentation)

Olives debittered in brine, flavored with bay leaf, fennel and a touch of oil, preserved for weeks. The quintessential traveler's snack, salty and fermented, which accompanies maza.

Why this dish? The laurel, Apollo's tree, perfumes the most Greek of preserves. The pilgrim who walked for days towards Delphi carried olives and cheese: traveling food, faithful companion of the journey to the oracle.

The prudent traveler never leaves his house with an empty stomach or an empty bag. Pick the still-bitter olives, drown them in brine and slip in a leaf of my laurel: time will do the rest, as it ripens oracles. When you walk towards my home at Delphi, these olives and a piece of cheese will suffice. Salt preserves what the gods give you; waste it, and you offend the earth.
— Apollo

Ingredients

•Fresh olives (green or black) — a full basket (preserved ingredient)
•Sea salt — generously (brine and preservation)
•Water — as needed (base of brine)
•Bay leaves — several (Apollo's fragrance)
•Fennel seeds and thyme sprigs — a handful (aromatics)
•Olive oil — a film on the surface (air barrier)

How it was made : The olive is one of the pillars of the ancient Mediterranean diet, but raw it is inedible: the Greeks debittered it in water then preserved it in brine or dry salt. These preserves, along with cheese and salted fish (tarichos), allowed them to get through the year and to travel — preservation was a matter of survival as much as taste.

Sources : Cato the Elder, De Agricultura (ancient methods of preserving olives, Greco-Roman world) · Andrew Dalby, Food in the Ancient World from A to Z (Routledge, 2003)