When I first tasted olives, I hated them. There were two jars of stuffed green olives at the back of the kitchen cupboard. They had been there for months and I don't know who brought them into the house. I don't think my mum would have bought them. We weren't a very adventurous family in our culinary tastes and in Scotland in the nineteen-seventies, enjoying olives would have been considered very adventurous indeed. They must have been a present.
One day when no one was around the kitchen, I decided to try an olive. I don't know why I was so sneaky, but they had been there so long and never discussed, so I figured they weren't meant for us kids. I thought they might even be medicine (now there's a reason for taking the 'Keep out of children's reach' label on medicine packs very seriously). I opened a jar, took out a fruit and gave it a cautious lick. That was enough. I quickly put the olive back in the jar and never mentioned the event to anybody. I knew that whatever else they were, olives were certainly not normal food.
Ten years later, I was at an after-hours university-flat party where a guy turned up with a huge catering-sized jar of stuffed green olives. Everyone started grabbing handfuls and stuffing them into their faces. I joined in and discovered that I loved olives. Maybe that's why they're used in cocktails. They go well with booze.
I tried black olives shortly afterwards and didn't like them so much, but maybe that was because they weren't of very good quality. Now that I've tried some excellent varieties from various places around the Mediterranean, I can say I love good olives, whatever colour they are. This recipe will work with black olives too, but if that's what you fancy, you might also like to try this black olive tapenade recipe. It uses a different herb mixture and includes tomatoes.
2 cans of pitted green olives (350g)
1 clove of garlic
Juice of half a lemon
A teaspoon of ground coriander
A quarter teaspoon of dried mint
A quarter teaspoon of dried thyme
2 dessertspoons of olive oil
Drain the olives well and put them and the garlic through a mincer a couple of times (or give them a whizz in the food processor). Mix in all the other ingredients and the tapenade is ready. Serve with bread or toast. It will keep for a couple of weeks in a jar in the fridge and is great for a half-asleep breakfast.