Olive-picking peasants get rosy cheeks

An invitation to spend a day picking olives with other “rosy-cheeked peasants” promised a harvest lunch and eligibility for a bottle of oil. I thought the idea sounded great, but should have been warned when Rex chose to go fishing instead.

I was first to arrive and, for an anxious moment, wondered if the other peasants knew something I didn’t. But they dribbled in and soon eight of us were hard at it.

The reason peasants are rosy-cheeked soon became apparent. They’re hot and bothered from all that hard work. And you never hear about the cricked necks they get from picking olives above head height.

At least olive trees have flexible branches and you don’t get stabbed by sharp twigs. We wore gloves so we could run our hands down the branches and soon the air was filled with the gentle thud of olives raining on the old sheets and curtains we had lain on the ground.

We picked from two types of tree: Koroneiki from Greece whose tiny olives yield lots of tasty oil, and J5, the progeny of a massive tree planted in the 1850’s by Far North settlers. The latter trees have been so unimaginatively-named that we olive picking peasants have a plea to people high up in olive circles - come up with more poetic names.

After each tree was picked, we’d pour the harvest into cane baskets which reinforced our sense of peasantness, and plastic laundry baskets which didn’t.

It was tedious work so it’s no wonder olive grove owners joke nervously that after a couple of harvests they’ve worked their way through all their friends. Tellingly, a couple who'd planned to plant 20 trees on their lifestyle block decided after a few hours that three would be a good number. 

By lunchtime we suspected today’s peasants would watch our labours with bemusement because they would sensibly buy olive oil from their local supermarket.

This was our friends’ third olive harvest. In their first year they were done by lunchtime, whereas this was a two-day mission that produced 350kg of olives. After being cleaned, separated from twigs and leaves then pressed, the harvest yielded an (apparently) impressive 42.7 litres of oil, or 122 350ml bottles.

Back home I proudly showed my digital photos of the trailer-load of olives we’d picked to the farmer who said if he’d had the camera he could have shown me the monster snapper that got away.

After a few hours sunning himself in a boat, he’d caught enough fish for several feeds, whereas I'd slaved all day for a cup and a half of olive oil - plus a delicious lunch and a few glasses of wine which were so enjoyable I suspect I’ll show up for next year’s harvest.