Does anyone know of a Fresh Olive Pitter?

[larry_stewart]

I have an older Italian patient who taught me his method of making olives.
First he gets a bunch of fresh green , unripe olives ( by the case).
He then slightly crushes each one, not to completely crush it, but to break it open so the inside is more exposed. He then soaks these broken olives in a very very salty brine for about 3 weeks or so. After this, he then soaks them in plain water for a few weeks. This whole process removes the bitterness from the unripe olive ( which if any of you ever ate a raw olive before ,you will truly understand how horribly bitter they can be, to the point that there person who first figured out that olives can be edible were either crazy or a pure genius).
Anyway, after this , he then stores them in a spiced up olive oil.

I have tried and liked his method. Not that the final product is the greatest olive Ive ever eaten, but just the fact that I can eliminate the bitterness feels like a true victory for me.

So, the point of this thread is I wish i could cleanly 'pit' the olives. This would loo much nicer than a crushed olive, yet still functionally expose the inside to the brine for the de-bitterness process.

Except for professional/ factory - like machines, all the other ones appear to be combo cherry/olive pitters that would probably only work for an already processed olive or soft cherry. Im not sure they would work for a hard, unripe green olive.

Thanks

Larry

 

[Addie]

https://www.amazon.com/Prepworks-Pr...g_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MTE2S8EPS5G04QSKNC9G

Did you take a look at the above? The majority of "cherry" pitters also work on olives. We have a program segment on one of our news station titled "Does It Work?" They tested this and gave it two thumbs up. The news person and the housewife who was testing it. This model has sharp metal prongs to cut through the fruit/olive cleanly.

I have a single pitter. If I used it more, I would definitely invest in this model.

 

[dragnlaw]

I knew fresh olives were extremely bitter but I didn't realize they were that "hard".

Perhaps your Italian patient had the right of it... without a commercial pitter, crushing them might be the only way?

I have a plastic one with a metal prong, seriously doubt I would recommend it for other than ripe.
Perhaps an all metal one could do it but check the hinge carefully as that is the thing that will break after a lot of resistance.

After the initial 3 weeks in brine, are they a little softer? could you then pit and dump them back in the brine for a while. Obviously takes longer this way but...