RIPENING AND PICKLING OF CALIFORNIA OLIVES. 7 



In most factories, after salting, the olives are run over sorting 

 belts, where they are sorted into two or three color grades, and all 

 bruised or injured fruit removed before canning. Patents for as- 

 signment to the public have been applied for by Bioletti and Cruess 

 of the California Agricultural Experiment Station at Berkeley, for 

 improvements in olive pickling, which involve the use of heated 

 solutions, with aeration and constant circulation of the solutions.^ 

 These conditions are obtained in various ways, and it is claimed that 

 the time required is very much shorter, and that a more satisfactory 

 product is obtained. Further details can be had from their de- 

 scriptions. A i^oint of special interest in pickling the black or ripe 

 olives is that the black color is formed or set by aeration accompany- 

 ing the alkali treatment. 



The pickling of green olives for sale as such is very similar. The 

 olives are picked before any yellow color shows, and they are treated 

 with similar solutions, except that usually only two caustic solu- 

 tions are used, and the greatest care is taken to protect the olives 

 from exposure to the air, which tends to cause a darkening of the 

 color. The green olive is given an after fermentation under 7 per 

 cent brine which develops its peculiar piquancy. 



PURPOSE OF INVESTIGATION. 



During the summer and fall of 1914 complaints concerning the 

 pickling of ripe olives in California were received by the Bureau of 

 Chemistry. The charge was made by one or two of the firms en- 

 gaged in this business that it was becoming a very common practice 

 among the picklers of olives to gather the fruit in a green and imma- 

 ture state and so to manipulate it during the pickling that the color 

 was artificially and unnaturally changed from green to black, the 

 finished product being sold as a ripe olive, to the deception of the 

 consumer and the detriment of the industry. The advantages of this 

 alleged fraudulent practice were stated to be that the fruit could 

 be stripped from the trees in one or, at the most, two pickings, whereas 

 if it were left until it had reached a proper stage of ripeness several 

 pickings would be necessary ; also that hard, immature fruit requires 

 less care and skill in pickling, and that early picking does away with 

 the danger of frost damage, especially in the northern districts. 

 It was evident that if there were truth in this statement the practice 

 in question would amount to a coloring or staining by which the in- 

 feriority of the immature fruit would be concealed, and that it would 

 be analogous to the coloring of immature oranges by sweating. On 

 examination the question seemed to merit careful study. The in- 

 vestigation here reported was accordingly undertaken to determine 

 whether immature olives were being pickled and sold as ripe, and 

 also whether inferiority was being concealed by a process of coloring. 



1 Calif. Agr. Exp. Sta. Bull. 289. 



