Broccoli Rising and an Olive Branch
Let’s talk about olives.
They’re the perfect party nibble.
Botanically speaking, they’re a fruit.
They’re nutrient-dense.
They’re a major selling point of the ever-popular, ever-so-healthy Mediterranean Diet.
And they’re a lot more.
The olive tree standing in the middle of the Acropolis was, according to myth, a gift from the goddess Athena. Hard to verify. But there’s no question olive trees have added majesty to the Mediterranean landscape for centuries.
Olives and olive trees are enshrined in our myths and culture. In Virgil’s first century masterpiece, The Aeneid, Aeneas extends an olive branch to show he comes in peace.
In the Bible, Genesis 8:11, the bit about Noah’s ark, we learn post-flood, Noah releases a dove to scope out what’s out there. “Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.”
Olives are blessed in the Quran and are one of Judaism’s seven sacred foods.
Olives are honored in both Judaism and Islam. The olive branch symbolizes peace around the world, a world feeling the ripples of pain, destruction, hate, and awfulness as the war between Israel and Hamas accelerates. It is time for two groups sharing the same land and more of the same ethos than they care to admit, to extend the olive branch, to find a peaceful path forward. With so much at stake, there must be a way, or all that will be left standing are the olive trees. Olives are a divine gift none of us own and all of us can enjoy and share.
Olive Recipes
Olives love whole grains.
Biblical barley and herb salad from Feeding the Hungry Ghost
Olives also love oranges. The pairing might sound nutty, but olives and oranges grow in the same climate, and on the plate they’re a Mediterranean classic, Oranges offer a smack of citrus, a spark of brininess and a little healthy fat fun.
Flavor of Italy’s Wendy Holloway ups the ante with fennel
Medfouna
Medfouna is Arabic for buried or hidden. It’s also the name of a Moroccan flatbread with something delicious inside. It’s often stuffed with meat. Not here, ace. Within this flatbread lurks on olive-rich filling.
If you’d like to dispense with the whole bread baking aspect, just make the olive filling.
Enjoy it as a dip or spread on its own or spread it on puff pastry sheets. Roll up, slice and bake for a stylish appetizer. In that case, you can call them olive(r) twists. Sorry, not sorry.
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