Olive Picking

On Saturday I joined the Photography Club for an olive picking trip!  We had a great time  learning about the different types of olives, what they are used for, how to pick them, and how they are pressed for oil at the Azienda Agricola Infantino.  On top of all of that we got to enjoy an amazing homemade lunch at the farm.

View of Mt. Etna from Azienda Agricola Infantino

Peperoncini drying in the sun

One of the many buckets full of olives that we picked

This young man worked at the farm and had climbed the tree to reach the highest olives

A lone Prickly Pear

A back lit grape leaf

Almost lemon season, but not quite

This is as fresh as olive oil gets!

The men who work the olive press and farmers from the surrounding area

Pressed Olives

Interesting fact: the olive remains seen above are sold to commercial oil companies to produce the oil that most of us buy in the grocery stores.  This pulp may be pressed 5 or 6 more times, heated, mixed with chemicals, etc. to get every last drop of oil.  Yuck...now I only want to buy oil directly from a farmer. The oil coming out of the press above is NOT what we buy at the grocery stores....what we get is usually only a small percentage of the "good stuff".

I highly recommend the Azienda Agricola Infantino to anyone visiting the Mineo area.  This farm will definitely be a place that I take people who visit me here in Sicily.