The olive of European and Asiatic countries, now also thoroughly a product of American-Californian soil, growing, too, even on south walls in parts of southern England, is known to the world through its oil, its pickled and dried fruits. The first is often adulterated with those excellent oils of the cottonseed and peanut (which should be allowed to appear under their own names, however) and poppy and other oils, but the adulteration is the more easily detected that olive oil congeals at a higher temperature than the other oils. It is the fleshy part of the fruit instead of the seed which gives the oil and of this there are several grades, the virgin oil, or best grade, being carefully pressed from I22 ,8adBig UOISSI,, SNOMes a4} Jo suO QTHOM AHL NI ANIAddIVaD LSHOUVT ie = aie ae “Ty va CALIFORNIA OLIVES THE OLIVE 123 olives plucked before perfectly mature. Other grades are manufactured from whole olives at otherstages or conditions, or from the already pressed pulp thrown into boiling water, from which the fat is skimmed, and some of the lower grades (for Castile and other soaps, etc.) are procured by certain processes of fermentation. It is a matter of medical history that olive oil is nourish- ing, fattening, laxative, and easily digested; that it is soothing to the stomach and intestinal tract and lessens the harmful effect. of acrid poisons or other harsh fluids. It is one of the greatest beautifiers known, a cupful each day building up the whole system, toning the nerves, and making the flesh firm—the skin soft. It is a soothing and relaxing food for the skin; in some countries is thought (so applied) to be a preventive of the plague and in the earlier stages of the disease to sometimes even cure it. For culinary purposes it is in salad dressings that olive oil gives the artistic and gastronomic effects that tend toward health (when combined with sufficient simplicity) and enriches the blood. (For proportion and combination for salads see Introductory Recipes.) The plum-like fruit of the olive when unripe and un- pickled is not pleasing in flavour, resembling a combina- tion of pepper, salt, and vinegar, with a peculiar acrid touch. But pickled the olive becomes with most people a much desired article of diet, acting as a spur to the palate as well as being a source of nourishment and by some claimed to assist in the digestion of other foods. (For Imitation Olives see Index to Plums.) Olive wood is susceptible of an unusual polish which brings out strange, beautiful spots and streaks of cloudy black merging into green and yellow hues. The leaves and bark were once supposed to possess qualities similar to those of cinchona bark and the gum also was 124 FRUIT RECIPES thought to have health-giving elements. To-day only certain chemical extracts (prepared chiefly in France) call forth healing power from the leaves and in such prep- arations are sometimes given in fevers, but the gum is used almost entirely for perfumery where used at all, as among the Italians. There is a species of American olive, The Devil-wood, (Olea Americana), which grows wild in some of the more southern states, which has a flower attractive for its sweet scent, and its fruit is considered fit subject for pickling. Save the wild crab apple blossom the sweet or Fragrant Olive (Olea fragrans or Osmanthus fragrans) of Japan and China, has no rival in the botanical world in. delicate yet distinctly penetrating and rarely exquisite fragrance. CHAPTER XII MELONS HE national fondness for watermelons, for spicy nut- megs, and their kind is so intense; so inseparable

AI-modernized reading of the original text

The olive of European and Asiatic countries, now also thoroughly a product of American-Californian soil, growing, too, even on south walls in parts of southern England, is known to the world through its oil, its pickled and dried fruits. The first is often adulterated with those excellent oils of the cottonseed and peanut (which should be allowed to appear under their own names, however) and poppy and other oils, but the adulteration is the more easily detected that olive oil congeals at a higher temperature than the other oils. It is the fleshy part of the fruit instead of the seed which gives the oil and of this there are several grades, the virgin oil, or best grade, being carefully pressed from [illustration: california olives] va CALIFORNIA OLIVES THE OLIVE 123 olives plucked before perfectly mature. Other grades are manufactured from whole olives at otherstages or conditions, or from the already pressed pulp thrown into boiling water, from which the fat is skimmed, and some of the lower grades (for Castile and other soaps, etc.) are procured by certain processes of fermentation. It is a matter of medical history that olive oil is nourishing, fattening, laxative, and easily digested; that it is soothing to the stomach and intestinal tract and lessens the harmful effect. of acrid poisons or other harsh fluids. It is one of the greatest beautifiers known, a cupful each day building up the whole system, toning the nerves, and making the flesh firm—the skin soft. It is a soothing and relaxing food for the skin; in some countries is thought (so applied) to be a preventive of the plague and in the earlier stages of the disease to sometimes even cure it. For culinary purposes it is in salad dressings that olive oil gives the artistic and gastronomic effects that tend toward health (when combined with sufficient simplicity) and enriches the blood. (For proportion and combination for salads see Introductory Recipes.) The plum-like fruit of the olive when unripe and unpickled is not pleasing in flavour, resembling a combination of pepper, salt, and vinegar, with a peculiar acrid touch. But pickled the olive becomes with most people a much desired article of diet, acting as a spur to the palate as well as being a source of nourishment and by some claimed to assist in the digestion of other foods. (For Imitation Olives see Index to Plums.) Olive wood is susceptible of an unusual polish which brings out strange, beautiful spots and streaks of cloudy black merging into green and yellow hues. The leaves and bark were once supposed to possess qualities similar to those of cinchona bark and the gum also was thought to have health-giving elements. To-day only certain chemical extracts (prepared chiefly in France) call forth healing power from the leaves and in such preparations are sometimes given in fevers, but the gum is used almost entirely for perfumery where used at all, as among the Italians. There is a species of American olive, The Devil-wood, (Olea Americana), which grows wild in some of the more southern states, which has a flower attractive for its sweet scent, and its fruit is considered fit subject for pickling. Save the wild crab apple blossom the sweet or Fragrant Olive (Olea fragrans or Osmanthus fragrans) of Japan and China, has no rival in the botanical world in. delicate yet distinctly penetrating and rarely exquisite fragrance. CHAPTER XII HE national fondness for watermelons, for spicy nutmegs, and their kind is so intense; so inseparable

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