what a week

Sammy Cremona

He wants to see the island covered with olive trees. Till then, we can re-discover the joy of our own local olive oil, thanks to his pressing machine.

I’ve just had two classes of students from Chiswick here. I explain the process of pressing olives and let some of them pick olives from my trees. I’ve got ten groups coming over the next three weeks and we’ve had more schools confirming. It’s not easy to keep fifty children entertained and interested for two hours, making sure that the naughty boys do something.

I asked the children to give me a hand feeding the emus: I got the smallest girl to feed them a long piece of carob, and then I gave the boys a very short bit, so that the emu would nip their hand!

There’s a lot of interest from schools, I cannot not oblige when it is they who come forward. Some farmers from Gozo are coming over too, they want to know more. And I’m expecting an ecological group soon, who want to disseminate the information I’ll give them.

It’s not just that we don’t know how to care for our olive trees, we don’t know how to take care of trees full stop. People think that farming is only about growing vegetables, they don’t realise that trees are an important part of farming, not just to be used as wind-breakers.

We’ve always had animals and a garden in the family. I get up at 6am to make tea for everyone and to feed the 400 birds, the dog Oliver and the cat. It’s a pleasure for me, I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have that time with the animals.

I got involved in olive oil because I used to think it was such a shame that we don’t have our own oil here. I’ve travelled all over the Mediterranean and used to bring a container of olive oil back with me. I saw pressing being done in Tunisia and Greece and recently in France (they use a different method). In France people look upon it as a big thing, instead of buying oil, they go and buy olives and take them to be crushed. The picholine olive comes from Provence, we do grow it here too. It’s not a big olive, and it doesn’t need to be put in brine.

What my work consists of is allowing people to bring their own olives to be pressed in my machine, at no charge. All I ask is that I keep 20% of the yield, which I then sell. If people bring less than 50 kilos, it will be added to other small quantities, and they will be given back a mix. It takes two hours for the whole process, producing five kilos an hour. The olives give a return of 10% oil at the beginning of the season, increasing to 20%, so you need to keep that in mind when visualising the yield from your oil.

Under the Wardija Pemium brand name, I supply the olive oil to the airport and to health shops. I want it to go to the right people, not be left on supermarket shelves where it will only be judged on price. Nor do I want it to be hoarded, I’d like it fresh. The fresher it is, the richer the colour and the more peppery the taste. It will also be rich in oleuropein, which is the antioxidant found in olive oil that boosts the immune system, it’s nature’s antibiotic and antioxidant. The oil must then be kept away from direct sunlight and heat.

I want more people to buy pressing machines and offer their services to others too.

I will be on Georg Sapiano’s programme this week talking about olives and the history of pressing olive oil in Malta. I took Georg to archaeological sites which are really interesting. At San Pawl Milqi there are the remains of an olive oil factory: three or four trapeziums (crushers), two presses, seven decanting tanks and all the system used to make secondary oil which was then used for lamps, olio lamante.

Why the manufacture stopped is a mystery, nobody can tell me what happened after 1000 AD. There definitely used to be more trees. Although the Knights planted a lot, somehow orange and lemon trees were always more popular, giving immediate fruit and no processing, and in fact the Knights were proud to take the citrus fruit back to France, Spain and Italy.

I’m convinced that by the amount of investment made by the Romans, that we must have had a special oil, which we have yet to re-discover. The Romans used olive oil as medicine too, there was nothing else. I know of six ancient presses in all.

Our soil is alkaline, which renders an olive oil with a low acidity level. Olives coming from older trees are practically devoid of acidity. The Sicilians are proud to have 1% acidity which can then be called ‘extra virgin’, ‘first press’ or ‘fine oil’. Ours had 0.03% acidity when we took it to Sicily to be tested!

In Bidnija, the olive trees are at least a thousand years old. Villagers there say that they come from the ‘days of the passion of Christ’. They could easily have been around since Roman times because the Romans used to land their galleons at Is-Salini, and nearby there is a fortified Roman villa.

This is the second year I’ve pressed oil in Malta, and the year before I pressed olives in Sicily where I found out about acidity. That gave me the courage and the will to go and find the right type of machine. In all we pressed 17 tons of olives last year, and this season we should press more because more people know about us, although the productivity is much lower than last year, due to a good year always being followed by a lean one.

We started pressing on 14 September and should continue till the end of November. Soon I’ll be having a new ‘frantoio’ – a room to carry out the pressing, what the Romans would call an ‘olearium’.

Olive trees need to be taken care of, by watering and pruning. They are great to have in the garden or fields because their roots grow straight down so you can grow other crops right up to their trunk. They need to be kept low, cutting off the male branches (non-fruit bearing) which are only needed for pollination. You always need to keep a couple of trees with the male branches left on, you would prune half your trees one year and half the next, every three years.

I’d like to stress that it is unhealthy to cure olives in lime. No matter what you do there will always be traces of lime left on. You can cure them by putting them in salt water which you will then change every other day, changing the water four times in all. Change the water once more then add bayleaves and olive leaves to the water: they are both antiseptic and prevent the formation of mould. Then leave the olives for three months, till about Easter or beginning of summer, and wash with fresh water. Dry them in the sun, or oven, add olive oil and that’s it. You can add herbs too, like wild fennel, rosemary or thyme.

If you have picholine olives, you blanch them in boiling water, dry and put in olive oil. That’s it, they don’t need soaking. Alternatively you can crack them, add garlic, rosemary and parsley and fry in olive oil, eaten with bread, duck or meat.

I recently took the olive press to Zejtun, Gnien iz-Zebbug was inaugurated and a replica of an old olive press was installed.

Others just criticise and complain about the environment, I am trying to do something positive. People need a reason to plant the trees – making money from them is possible.

I’m keeping tabs on the importation of trees, and then I’ll relax about it. I’d have made a difference to the skyline and the environment, maybe olive trees can be planted on Maghtab.

I’ll plough on as long as there are olives to press. My aim in all this is to see a million olive trees planted.