Stuffed olives – those popular cocktail – hour appetisers- are usually stoned and stuffed by machines. The pimiento (red pepper) filling is a kind of paste, made by mixing the pimiento with a gelling agent.
The olives are aligned in rows on a perforated conveyor belt, and the stones removed by an automatic machine head, rather like a dentist’s drill. A nozzle then pumps the pimiento paste into the drilled hole in the olives.
The stones are later ground and used for animal feed – or to produce a low-grade oil.
Some high quality stuffed olives, containing anchovy, smoked salmon, chopped almonds or other nut fillings, are stoned with handheld scoop and then filled by hand.
Olive stuffing machines can process 1800 olives a minute. Manual olive stuffers mostly in Portugal can average only around 18 a minute, and a poorly paid.
Olives are grown around the Mediterranean, and in Peru, Chile, California, British Columbia and Australia. The green variety, preferable for stuffing because of their firmer texture, are the unripe fruit.
Before the stuffing process, olives are soaked in the solution of sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), which reduces their bitter flavour. Then, after washing in water, they are immersed in brine with added lactic acid to neutralise any remaining alkali. While soaking they are allowed to ferment, which encourages harmless bacteria and yeast to grow to achieve the correct characteristic flavour and texture.
Picture Credit : Google