All is not well amongst the olives
Looking towards the olive harvest.
FOOD, WINE AND HOME
Joan
5/5/20244 min read
Have you seen the price of olive oil recently? It's not surprising, considering that all the health pundits sing the praises of this green-golden elixir. We all seem to want to cook with it nowadays, and dress our salads. But alas, recent olive harvests have been precarious, especially in Spain, and there have been shortages. No wonder prices are rocketing. So what is going on in St Etienne de Gourgas this year? How are the olive producers going to fare?
Just above our road into town lies an old olive grove. Planted on steep narrow terraces , the olive trees that grew there were some of the oldest in our valley, having survived the dreadful frosts of 1956 which killed off two thirds of all the olive trees in the South of France. They belonged to Monsieur B. the largest producer of olives in our valley, and every year they would be harvested by hand. It couldn't have been an easy job, as the road beneath them has since become quite busy, as opposed to the sleepy by-way it once was when the trees were planted. About a month ago we were puzzled to see that all the branches on these faithful old trees had been severely cut back. They remained little more than stumps. What was it all about?
What's more those beautiful old terraces looked devastated, as the earth was upturned and old stone walls that had taken months of copious labour to construct, all crumbled. The only trees that were left standing were those at the very edge of the road that would have cause rocks to collapse in the path of passing traffic. It was a sad sight. We were anxious to know what was going on. But Monsieur .B. is a busy man. We were never going to bump into him to pass the time of day, let alone find out the reason behind all this.
And then a mechanical digger moved in. The olive tree stumps were dug out and removed. It was a very sad sight.