This site works better with JavaScript enabled!

[ Plant part | Family | Aroma | Chemistry | Origin | Etymology | Discussion | Bottom ]

Olive (Olea europaea L.)

Synonyms

pharmaceutical Oleum Olivarum

Albanian Ullir
ኦሊቨ, ዘይት, ወይራ
Amharic
Oliva, Zayt, Wayra
‫ز ن‬
Arabic ‫زَ ْ ُ ن‬
Zaytun, Zaytoon
,
Aramaic
Zait, Zaitun
Ձիթենի, Ձիթապտուղ, Զեյթուն
Armenian
Jiteni, Jitabdoogh, Zeytoon, Jitaptugh, Zeytun
Zeytun
Azeri
Зејтун
Basque Oliba, Oliondo
Аліва
Belarusian
Aliva
অিলভ
Bengali
Olibh
Маслина
Bulgarian
Maslina
Catalan Oastre, Rabell, Ullastre, Olivera
Chinese 橄欖樹 [gaam láam syuh]
(Cantonese) Gaam laam syuh
Chinese 橄欖樹 [gǎn lǎn shù]
(Mandarin) Gan lan shu
ϫ ,ϫ
Coptic
Jeit, Joit
Croatian Maslina
Czech Oliva, Olivovník evropský
Danish Oliven

Dhivehi
Zaithooni
Dutch Olijf
Esperanto Olivo
Estonian Õlipuus, Euroopa õlipuu, Oliiv
‫ز ن‬
Farsi
Zeitun
Finnish Öljypuu
French Olive
Frisian Oliif
Gaelic Ola, Sgolag
ზეთის, ზეთისხილი
Georgian
Zetis; Zetiskhili, Zetisxili (fruit)
German Olive, Ölbaum
Ελιά
Greek
Elia
Ἐλαία, Ἐλαίς
Greek (Old)
Elaia, Elais
ઓ લવ
Gujarati
Oliv
Hausa Zaitun
‫זית‬
Hebrew ‫ז ַית‬
Zayit

Hindi
ज़ैतून, जैतून, जलपाई
Zaitun, Jaitun, Jalapai
Hungarian Olíva, Olajfa, Olajbogyó (tree)
Icelandic Ólífa
Irish Ológ
Italian Oliva
オリーブ
Japanese
Oribu
ಆ
Kannada
Aliv, Julipe
Зәйтүн ағашы, Зәйтун
Kazakh
Zäytwn; Zäytün ağaşı (tree)
올리브
Korean
Ollibu
ໝາກໂອລບ
Lao
Mak olib
Latin Olea, Oliva
Latvian Olīvas
Lithuanian Alyvos, Europinis alyvmedis
Маслинка, Маслиново дрво, Маслинов зејтин
Macedonian
Maslinka; Maslinovo drvo (tree); Maslinov zejtin (oil)
ഒലീവ്, ഓലി
Malayalam
Oleevu, Oli
Maltese Żebbuġ
Чидун
Mongolian
Chidun

Nepali
जैतून
Jaitun
Polish Oliwka
Portuguese Oliveira (tree), Azeitona (fruit)
Provençal Óulivié
ਜਤਨ
Punjabi
Jaitun
Romanian Măslină, Măslin (tree)
Олива
Russian
Oliva
Маслина
Serbian
Maslina
Slovak Oliva európska, Olivovník európsky, Oliva
Slovenian Oljka
Spanish Oliva, Aceituna
Swahili Zeituni
Swedish Oliv
Зэйтун
Tajik
Zeytun
ைச ண
Tamil
Saidun
Telugu Jaitun
มะกอก
Thai
Ma kok (more often used for Spondias mombin)
ኣውሊዕ
Tigrinya
Aulie
Turkish Zeytin
Zeýtin
Turkmen
Зейтин
Олива
Ukrainian
Olyva
‫ز ن‬
Urdu
Zetun
Zaytun
Uzbek
Зайтун
Ô liu, Cây ôliu
Vietnamese
O liu, Cay o liu
Welsh Olewydden

Yiddish
‫מאַסלינע‬, ‫אָליװע‬, ‫אײלבערט‬, ‫אײלבירט‬
Masline, Olive, Eylbert, Eylbirt
Olea europaea: Ripe olives
Branch with ripe olives
 www.botanikus.de

Olea europaea: Unripe olives

Branch with unripe olives
Used plant part

The fruit (a drupe), which is pale green when unripe and purple to black when ripe. Most olive fruits are harvested for the extraction of olive oil; only a
small fraction goes into the production of pickled olives.

The leaves of the olive tree are used medicinally for their hypotensive qualities.

Plant family

Oleaceae (olive family).

Sensory quality

Raw unripe olives are very bitter; to make them palatable, the bitter constituents are reduced by treatment with lye. Ripe olives, on the other hand, can be
directly preserved in salt or brine.

Olea europaea: Olives

Olives in various stages of ripening

homepage.bluewin.ch

Olive oil has a very variable flavour. The best oils can have mild or strong flavour that ranges somewhere between “floral”, “fruity” or “fresh”. Poor
qualities have pungent, acidic, rancid or even no aroma.

Main constituents

In leaves and fruits of the olive tree, a phenolic seco-iridoid called oleuropein is found; it is the hypotensive principle. Before pickling olives, the oleuropein
is removed either by treatment with lye or by lactic fermentation; the remaining residues of oleuropein are sometimes said to prevent diseases resulting
from high blood pressure.

Olive oil is obtained from the mesocarp (pulp) of special varieties of olives with rather small fruits; the mesocarp contains about 55% of oil.

In the past, olive oil was extracted in hydraulic presses, like most other vegetable oils (see sesame); from that time stems the term “cold-pressed” for the
first fractions with best flavour, which were extracted at low temperature and less than 50 bar pressure (Italian olio extra vergine di oliva, Greek partheno
elaiolado [παρθένο ελαιόλαδο]).

Olea europaea: Olive branch

Olive branch with unripe fruits
Olea europaea: Oiltree branch
Olive branch with unripe fruit

Today, however, olive oil is almost exclusively obtained by centrifugation, which allows much better yield without applying elevated temperature. Con-
sequently, almost all olive oil in the food sector is “cold-pressed” olive oil. The very best quality (dripping oil) is produced without centrifugation, by
sedimentation only; it is rare and expensive. The best quality produced in mass scale is called native olive oil extra in the countries of the European Union;
“native extra” loosely corresponds to the more historic term “extra vergine”. Both “native olive oil extra” and the next quality class, “native olive oil”, must
be produced without applying heat, and must not be refined. Products called simply “olive oil”, however, have usually been refined and often contain small
amounts of native oils to improve the flavour.

Olive oil is composed, like all vegetable oils (see also sesame), of fatty acids bound to the alcohol glycerol. Typically, the following fatty acids are found in
olive oil: 66% oleic acid, 12% linoleic acid, 9% palmitic acid, 5% eicosenoic acid and 5% palmitoleic acid. Olive oil may contain up to 1.5% of an acyclic
triterpene hydrocarbon, squalene.

Olea europaea: Ripe olive

Ripe olive
Olea europaea: Flowering olive
branch
Flowering olive branch

The most important parameter for the quality of olive oils is the content of free fatty acids, which must be below 0.8% for “native olive oil extra”, but may
be up to 2% for “native olive oil”. Free fatty acids are formed in the ground olive paste by action of enzymes (lipases) contained in the olive fruits. The only
way to control their formation is cooling and quick extraction. Free fatty acids are unwanted because they lower the smoke point and contribute off-flavour.

The desired flavour of olive oil is dominated by aldehydes (hexanal and 2-hexenal). Furthermore, higher aldehydes, primary alcohols (mainly C6
compounds like hexanol, 2-hexene-1-ol, 3-hexene-1-ol) and their acetic acid esters contribute to the characteristic olive oil aroma. Lastly, hemiterpenoid
volatiles were found (3-methyl butanal, 4-methoxy-2-methyl-butanethiol, ethyl esters of 2- and 3-methyl butyric acid). The flavour components, however,
depend on variety and geographic origin of the oil.

The typical olive oil colour is due to plant pigments of the carotenoid series (β-carotene, phytofluene, ξ-carotene, lutein, auroxanthin, luteoxanthin,
violaxanthin, neoxanthin, neochrome), which contribute a yellow hue, and greenish to brown porphyrines (chlorophyll a and b, and pheophytine a and b).
Chlorophyll content may be as high as 10 ppm.

Origin

Cultivation of the olive tree is known in the Eastern Mediterranean since five millennia. Whether the plant really stems from these regions or is a native to
Central Asia is subject to debate.

Olea europaea: Olivenblüten

 Olivenblüten
Olea europaea: Olive flowers
Olive flowers
Etymology

Olive is a loan from Latin oliva “olive; olive tree”, which itself was derived from Greek: elais [ἐλαίς] “olive tree” and elaia [ἐλαία] (from older elaiva
[ἐλαίϝα], Mycenaean elaiwa [ , , ]) “olive; olive tree”; furthermore elaion [ἔλαιον] (Mycenaean elaiwon [ , , ]) “olive oil”. These
words are not Indo–European in origin; it is generally accepted that they were transferred to Greek by some Eastern Mediterranean language, often assumed
to be Semitic. Yet as we don’t know the botanical origin of the olive tree, the name could, together with the tree, have travelled from more distant Eastern
regions. There is a curious connection to the Dravidian languages which are today spoken in Southern India: Sesame, an important local source of vegetable
oil, bears names that are remarkably similar to Greek elaia, e. g., Tamil ellu (pronounced yellu [எ ]). Sometimes, both words are suspected to derive
from a common ancestor, e. g., Akkadian ellu “flower, fruit, olive”.

Most of the contemporary European languages have a word for “olive” that derives, directly or indirectly, from Latin oliva. Examples are German Olive,
Polish oliwka, Slovenian oljka, Frisian oliif, Latvian olīvas and Dutch olijf. In some languages, the name got slightly modified, e. g., Lithuanian alyvos and
Albanian ullir.

The medieval German terms for olive were Old High German oliberi (10.th century) and Middle High German ölber “oil-berry”, which were obviously
formed under the influence of Latin oliva (Old High German oli “oil” is an old Romance loanword from Latin oleum and attested since the 8.th century).
Modern German Olive is a much younger loan (16.th century). The Middle High German term has vanished from the language, but was conserved in
Yiddish as eylbirt [‫]אײלבירט‬, which, however, is today also used to denote other oilseed plans, e. g., sunflower.

Only in the languages of the Iberic peninsula, the Latin name was superseded by an Arabic loan: Spanish aceituna and Portuguese azeitona both come from
Arabic az-zaytun [‫ن‬ ‫“ ]ا‬the olive”; on the other hand, Spanish oliva and Portuguese oliveira refer to the tree, not to the fruit. See also capers for more
examples of Arabic loans in Iberic languages.

Olea europaea: Olive branch nfrutescence, immature

Olive branch with unripe fruits
Olea europaea: Embryonic olives
Very young olives, shortly after pollination

The Arabic word zaytun [‫ ]ز ن‬is cognate to Hebrew zayith [‫]זית‬, Aramaic zayta [ ] and perhaps also Coptic jeeit [ϫ ] “olive” and might
derive from a Common Semitic root signifying “to be prominent”; on the other side, it might also have been borrowed from a language of Mesopotamia
(Sumerian zirdum [ ], Akkadian serdu). Due to the spread of Islâm, the word was subsequently transferred to many more languages, from the
Mediterranean (Portuguese azeitona) to Africa (Swahili zeituni) and Asia, which features related names in a wide area from the Caucasus to the South
Asian tropics: Georgian zetis [ზეთის], Armenian jiteni [ձիթենի], Kazakh zäytun [зәйтун], Kurdish zaitun [‫]زة ون‬, Farsi zeitun [‫]ز ن‬, Punjabi and Hindi
jaitun [ਜਤਨ, ज़ैतून], Tamil saidun [ைச ], Dhivehi zaithooni [ ] and even Mongolian chidun [чидун]. Another, more distantly related word is
Maltese żebbuġ which is suspected to derive from a term for “olive” in the Berber language, which also belongs to the Semitic language subfamily.

Due to the enormous importance of olives for both the Greek and the Roman cultures, their name entered nearly every European language via Latin oleum
“oil” as generic word for liquid fats, e. g., English oil, French huile, German Öl, Italian olio, Dutch olie, Polish olej and Finnish öljy.

Similarly, the Iberic names for “oil” (Spanish aceite, Portuguese azeite besides óleo) derive from the local names of olive, aceituna and azeitona, respec-
tively.

In other parts of the world, the generic names of cooking fats may also be derived from whatever oilseed dominates local cookery. Examples are provided
by coconut and sesame.

Some Slavonic names of olive, e. g., Bulgarian maslina [маслина] “olive”, have an exactly opposite history: Maslina derives from maslo [масло] “oil, fat”,
which originally meant “butter” (from a Common Slavonic root MAZ- “spread”). Words related to Bulgarian maslina made their way into some non-
Slavonic languages, e. g., Romanian măslin and Yiddish masline [‫]מאַסלינע‬.

The term maslo [масло], however, is not used for olive oil in Bulgarian, which is instead known as zehtin [зехтин] (from Turkish zeytin “olive”). Vegetable
oils are often called olio [олио] in Bulgarian.

Occasionally, fruits of botanically unrelated trees may be called “olives”, often with an epithet referring to distribution. For example, the “Bengali olives”
(or “Indian olives”) are the aromatic fruits of Elaeocarpus robustus; in West Bengal and Bangladesh, they are often used to prepare a chutney with delicious
fruity and acidic taste. A similar case is the “Thai olive” ma kok [มะกอก] (Spondias mombin, Sp. pinnata, Sp. cytherea and others), which allegedly gave its
name to Thailand’s capital, Bangkok. Such designations may sometimes be used to denote true Mediterranean olives in the local language, with or without
an epithet “foreign”.

Selected Links

Transport Information Service: Olive Oil Pacific Islands Ecosystems at Risk: Olive Olive Trees in Crete Olive Fruit Facts Olive Presses and Mills Tuscany
and Italy – Olives and Olive Oil Olive Expert: Through the Mists of Time Composition of Olive Oil Informationsgemeinschaft Olivenöl (olivenoel-
info.net) Bilderserie zur Herstellung von extra vergine Olivenöl (Koni Berg) Recipe: Tapenade (www.cliffordawright.com) Recipe: Tapenade
(homecooking.about.com) Recipe: Tapenade (appetizerrecipe.com) Recipe: İmam bayıldı (Imam bayildi) (cliffordawright.com) Recipe: İmam bayıldı
(Imam bayildi) (recipecottage.com) Recipe: İmam bayıldı (Imam bayildi) (recipehound.com)

Olea europaea: Olive tree near St. Pierre

Kilisesi (Antakya, Turkey)
Olive tree near St. Petrus Church in Antakya
(ancient Antioch), Turkey
Olea europaea: Olive tree
Olive tree

www.botanikus.de
Olive is one of the most important cultigens and played in exceptionally significant rôle in the ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean sea: Egyptians,
Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans knew and valued olive oil. The olive tree is mentioned in the Homeric epics (see poppy) and olive branches were used, in oldest
time, to decorate the winners of the Olympic Games; later, they were replaced by bay leaves. In the classic era of Greece, the olive was closely associated with the
goddess Pallas Athene, a daughter of Zeus. Innumerous are the instances of olive in the Bible, both in the Old and the New Testament (see pomegranate). The old
Romans used olive oil extensively (see also silphion).

Olives are grown in the whole Mediterranean region and are a most important part of the diet in all Mediterranean countries: Olive oil is ubiquitously used as a
cooking medium, and pickled olives are popular both a spice and as a snack.

Olea europaea: Olive flowers

Olive flowers
Olea europaea: Olive
branch with flowers
Olive branch with flowers

www.desert-tropicals.com

Pickled olives are either black or green, depending whether they have been harvested unripe or ripe. Green olives are plucked unripe and either repeatedly
watered or treated with concentrated lye before pickling; by the latter procedure, which dates back to ancient Rome, bitterness is greatly reduced and the texture is
improved. Black olives are plucked ripe; in Greece, they are treated with salt or undergo lactic fermentation, which results in an intense flavour. The brine olives
are pickled in is often further enhanced by addition of some herbs (thyme, oregano) or garlic.

Pickled olives are a common decoration for cold dishes and tasty sauces. Of course, they fit best to specialties from the Mediterranean. Olive’s flavour can be
enhanced by preparing a paste of finely cut and squeezed olives with good olive oil. Adding anchovies (fermented fish), garlic and capers to such a paste from
black olives and olive oil gives tapenade, a Southern French condiment and appetizer which tastes best with crispy baguettes.

The use of olives for warm dishes is more or less restricted to Mediterranean cuisines. Tomato sauces containing onion, garlic, capers and green (or sometimes
black) olives are characteristic of Italy; they may be made even tastier by adding fresh herbs (basil, oregano and rue). Sauces of this kind may be used to cook
meat or poultry or they can simply be served together with noodles (pasta). Italian pizza is often prepared with (usually black) olives, mostly so in Southern Italy
(see oregano).

Far more important than pickled olives is, however, olive oil, whose production consumes about 90% of olive acreage. The best quality, native olive oil extra
(formerly known by the Italian term extra vergine), is quite variable in appearance and taste; after having tried some oils, most people develop different
preferences. Some oils are subtle and flowery, others intense and fruity. It is probably a good idea to stock a few different varieties in the kitchen.

There is a huge variety in olive oils, both regarding colour and flavour. The multitude of olive oil qualities can, essentially, be reduced to two factors: Quality of
the underlying olives, and method of extraction.

Best extra vergine olive oil is produced from several different varieties of olives, the fruits being picked all at the same time, at different stages of ripeness.
Furthermore, climate, altitude and soil influence the flavour of the oil. Last of all, olives must be extracted as soon as possible after plucking, and in the meantime,
they require dry storage and careful handling to avoid the formation of marks on the fruits.

Olea europaea: Olive branch with unripe fruits

Olive branch with unripe fruits
Olea europaea: Olive flowers
Olive branch with flowers

When extracting olives, one encounters a problem rarely found with other oil crops: High water content. By grinding, one does not arrive at a dry mass suitable
for high-pressure extraction, but one gets a liquid if viscous emulsion of oil in water. Under these conditions, lipases (fat-cleaving enzymes) can quickly degrade
the oil. To counteract, one has to cool efficiently and to work as quickly as possible. For best quality, temperature must never exceed 25 °C, which is only possible
with special grinding machines. After grinding (which is more a kind of puréeing), the oil is separated by sedimentation or centrifugation. The next fraction of oil,
obtained from the watery residue of the first centrifugation, often at slightly elevated temperature, is less aromatic. Any oil produced in this way may be marketed
as “native olive oil” or even “native olive oil extra” if the free acid level permits.

Native olive oil extra should be used for cold foods only, since the flavour detoriates on heating: Volatile constituents may evaporate or react toward unpleasantly
flavoured compounds. Native olive oil, which is from the beginning poorer in aroma, is well suited for careful shallow-frying. Nevertheless, even native olive oils
does not tolerate the high temperatures typical of deep-frying, for which therefore other oils are better choice (e. g., peanut or sunflower oil); when using olive oil,
one has to fry at comparatively low temperatures that do not allow for efficient browning of meats or vegetables. To improve the smoke point, one can add butter
or better butter fat, which also may be beneficial for the flavour.

Olea europaea: Unripe olives

Unripe olives

Many of the dishes of Southern Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa owe much of their character to extra vergine olive oil. It is used for salads, for the Near
East chick pea paste hummus (see sesame), cold appetizers (in Israel collectively known as mezes) and the salads of the Eastern Mediterranean based on bulgur,
this is, cracked and precooked wheat (tabbouleh, kısır; see parsley). Furthermore, olive oil is used for spicy dips like Egypt dukka (see thyme) or the famous
Provençal garlic mayonnaise aïoli. Italian noodles (pasta) are often boiled with a spoonful of olive oil to prevent them from sticking together; before serving,
olive oil is often spooned over to increase the flavour.

By using olive oil instead of bland vegetable oil, everyday dishes like shallow-fried vegetables (zucchini, aubergines, capsicum) get a typically Mediterranean
character, even more if they are served with yoghurt or tomato sauce. A famous example from Turkey is imam bayıldı (“the İmam fainted”, probably for
pleasure), aubergine fried in olive oil stuffed with a spicy paste of tomatoes and garlic. Slow frying of vegetables in olive oil consumes a lot of the oil; sometimes,
it is possible to deep-fry (or grill) the vegetables instead, pat them dry and sprinkle some with high-quality olive oil before serving.

The taste of olive oil harmonizes excellently with the fragrance of Mediterranean herbs. In the Mediterranean countries, olive oil is often flavoured with branches
of rosemary, lavender, tarragon or, on Cyprus, with fresh capers. Most fresh herbs can be preserved in olive oil; their aroma compounds dissolve better in oil than
in an aqueous medium. A most famous recipe of this kind is pesto, a paste of ground basil leaves in olive oil.

Not only the gentle fragrance of fresh herbs, but also the pungency of chiles has an affinity for a fatty medium. In Italy, small but powerful chiles (peperoncini)
are often used to convert olive oil into a fiery condiment (olio santo or olio piccante). I have seen a comparable chile oil in Arizona. According to personal taste, it
may be used drop by drop or tablespoon by tablespoon. In some variants of the Yemeni condiment zhoug (see coriander), the heat of green chiles is transmitted by
olive oil.

Table of Contents
Alphabetical Index (index by names)
Botanical Index (index by plant families)
Geographical Index (index by country of origin)
Morphological Index (index by plant part)
Spice Mixture Index
German version of this text
Back to my home page

Unicode Encoded Validate using the WDG validator Validate using the VALIDOME validator Modification date: 18 May 2003
Report problems and suggestions to Gernot Katzer
(treabgxngmre)

Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages Table of Content page

Indices Various indices to search for a particular spice
English All English spice names, sorted alphabetically
Multilingual Search spices by foreign names
Alphabetic More than 10000 spice names in 70+ languages
Greek ScriptSearch spices names in Old and Modern Greek
Cyrillic ScriptSearch spices names in Russian, Bulgarian, Kazakh,…
Hebrew ScriptSearch spices names in Hebrew and Yiddish
Arabic Script Search spice names in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu,…
Indic ScriptsSearch spice names in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu,…
Hanzi & Kanji Search spice names in Chinese and Japanese
More … Spice names in rarer tongues
Tibetan Spice names from the Himalayas
Manipuri Spice names from North East India
Thai/Lao Spice names from Thailand and Laos
Khmer Spice names from Cambodia
Vietnamese Spice names from Vietnam
Ge‘ez Spice names from East Africa
Thaana Spice names from Maldives
Hangul Spice names from Korea
Kana Spice names from Japan
Georgian Spice names from Georgia
Armenian Spice names from Armenia
Geographic Spices sorted according to region of origin or frequent usage
Botanical Spices sorted according to plant families
Morphologic Spices sorted according to part of the plant
Spice Mixtures Index of spice mixtures and their main ingredients
Search Explanation how to use the search engine
Other Some other texts on spices
Introduction Some introduction, definition, notes on copyright…
Overview Overview on this site, plant chemistry,…
References Where to learn more of spices
Literature Some books on spices, ethnic cookery, chemistry, scripts…
Weblinks Links to some interesting sites
Photo Sources Detailed listing of all photos, copyright…
Spice Sources Commercial sources for spices and ethnical flavourings
German (Deutsch) Die Seite können Sie auch auf Deutsch lesen
Contact
Technote Web design stuff, list of known bugs, feedback welcome!
Personal Home Page My home page with some more info on me
Email Contact me with questions, suggestions, complaints, …

Quick Search:
FreeFind Search
Top   Plant part   Family   Aroma   Chemistry   Origin   Etymology   Discussion   Bottom