Oodles of olives.

Byline: JIM BOYD The Register-Guard

SPECIALTY OLIVES are the "the darling of the deli," according to the current issue of Specialty Food magazine, and a look around local markets provides proof.

Customers aren't limited to a choice of green olives stuffed with pimento and the canned black kind that mischievous kids put on their fingers at Thanksgiving dinner.

Olives of brown, purple, green and wrinkled black from places such as Greece, France, Spain, North Africa and California are making their way through the American food distribution system to markets and delicatessens close to home.

"I think I really started to learn the range of olives when I started to travel in France and would go to farmers' markets where the olive guy had just vat after vat of different kinds of olives," Stephanie Pearl Kimmel says.

Kimmel, the managing partner and executive chef for Marche restaurant, is a Francophile who loves olives.

"Phil (her husband) and I use olives a lot," she said. "We probably buy a pint of olives a week. We buy the bulk olives most of the time. One of my favorite things to do at home for a really quick, tasty dinner is to take a piece of fish and saute it, deglaze with a little white wine, and then throw in some olives and capers, and in the summer, maybe a little chopped, fresh tomato. Salt and pepper. It's wonderful. It kind of makes its own sauce."

Everyone is familiar with the olives that are sold in jars from grocery store shelves. But the newest (or oldest) way of marketing olives is in bulk, usually packed in the brine in which they were cured.

Eight to 10 varieties seems to be the maximum number of bulk olive varieties stocked by any Eugene-Springfield store. You can shop around, however, and discover different olives because the delis don't sell exactly the same varieties, except for the ubiquitous Kalamata, a tasty ripe olive from Greece, and the popular Greek country mix.

You can find olives with romantic names that evoke places you may have only read about.

Crocks at Newman's Fish Co., for example, contained seven olive varieties when we visited the store. They included the Bella di Cerignola, a green olive the size of a walnut that comes from the area around Bari in the province of Puglia in Italy's southeast corner; smaller, purple-brown Gaeta olives, also from Italy; and big, sweet, purple Tailladees olives from France.

A company owned by Hormel distributes 11 varieties of Peloponnese brand, naturally brine-cured olives to supermarkets nationally. They are packed in flat, plastic containers and glass jars, and in buckets for bulk sales. The varieties include Atalanti, Nafplion, Elitses, Amfissa, Kaliva, Ionian Green and Thasos.

However, local deli buyers probably choose their bulk olives from among the offerings of three Portland-area suppliers, said Megan Lynch, the buyer for The Kiva market. The suppliers are Provvista Specialty Foods, Alexis Restaurant and Eurobest Food Industries.

"I think the newest phenomena is the amount or the selection that is offered to the consumer and is available now," said Brian Howard, Eurobest's director of food service sales. "It has been our largest growing category as a company over the last five years because of the demand and the offerings and what's available now. We used to carry, you know, three or four olives and now we're up to over 40."

Olives ripen on the tree from a green color through shades of yellow to red to purple-black. Fresh olives contain oleuropein, a bitter substance that curing is designed to reduce or remove. The color of cured olives usually gives a clue to their ripeness when picked.

The exception is the American method for producing black olives for pizza toppings. Those olives are picked green and artificially ripened by being submerged in lye and exposed to air until they turn brown to black. They are treated with an iron compound to complete the blackening, and must be sterilized in cans because they contain neither enough acid nor enough salt to inactivate microorganisms.

The World Book Encyclopedia lists two European processing methods: the Spanish, in which olives are soaked in lye, then fermented in brine and pasteurized; and the Greek method, a slow fermentation in brine without the initial use of lye. Dry-curing with rock salt is another traditional method.

Howard doesn't approve of olive curing methods that use pasteurization or lye. "It's not natural," he says.

Eurobest obtains its olives through Phil Meldrum, president of FoodMatch in New York City, who imports olives and sells them under the Divina brand.

Meldrum says he buys and cures olives from a select group of growers. So select, in fact, that Meldrum offers an estate-labeled olive, Father Red's Messinia Estate Kalamatas, from an olive grower who is also the town priest.

Meldrum said he takes pains to see that the story and photos telling about the origin of his olives is passed down for wholesalers and retailers to share with the public. But he would be disappointed if he came to Eugene.

The hand-written labels deli clerks must draft to describe their bulk olives are sometimes terse (name of olive and price, for example, but no country of origin) and sometimes incorrect. One olive bar offering green olives stuffed with citrus, almonds, feta or garlic had them labeled "Sicilian" when I visited.

"If they're labeled Sicilian, they're from Sicily," a clerk told me when I asked whether they might possibly be mislabeled Sicilian-style olives from Northern California, a type I love to sample on every trip to San Francisco.

After further checking with the deli manager and then with the supplier, I determined that they were mislabeled, all right. They were neither Sicilian nor Sicilian-style, but Meldrum's Divina brand Mount Athos stuffed green olives from Greece.

Accurate information about the proliferating number of olive varieties is hard to find. The best descriptions I found on the Internet were written by Ari Weinzweig, a founder of Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Mich. The list is part of a book he hopes to finish and can be found on the ArborFood.com Web site.

Consumers interested in knowing more about the olives they buy can ask some basic questions of the olive seller, Meldrum advises. What country do the olives come from? Are they naturally cured or not? Are they pasteurized or not?

"Ultimately, the best stuff is what you like," Meldrum said. "And the nice thing about olives is they're easy to taste."

For best flavor, olives should be served at room temperature or warmed briefly with olive oil in a frying pan, not served cold from the refrigerator.

The main thing to know about cooking with olives is that they should be added late in the cooking process because an olive's bitter taste will reassert itself if it's stewed too long.

Here are some recipes for cooking with olives.

Braised Lamb Shoulder With Tomatoes and Olives

1 lamb shoulder (about 3 1/2 pounds), boned, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2 - to 2-inch cubes

Salt

Flour

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

4 cloves of garlic, flattened and peeled

3/4 cup dry white or rose wine

1/2 cup chicken stock or water

3/4 pound tomatoes, peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped (in the off season, use about 1 cup of good quality canned pear tomatoes)

1 teaspoon herbes de Provence, or substitute a bit of thyme, rosemary, and/or sage

1/2 cup Mediterranean olives, rinsed (whole or pitted olives may be used)

Salt the lamb cubes and dredge them in the flour. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy saute pan or Dutch oven. Add the lamb, being careful not to crowd the pieces (so they will brown instead of steam). Do this in batches if necessary.

Remove browned lamb and set aside in a warm place. Add the onion and garlic to the pan and cook until softened and lightly colored. Turn the heat up, add the wine and stock and stir, scraping up the brown bits until dissolved.

Add the tomatoes, lamb and herbs, bring to a boil and then adjust heat to low. Cook at a gentle simmer for 1 1/2 hours. About 10 minutes before serving, add the olives.

Serve with polenta, braised white beans, noodles or steamed potatoes, and a nicely seasoned dish of sauteed winter greens.

Serves 4.

Source: Stephanie Pearl Kimmel, Marche restaurant.

Seafood With Olive, Caper and Lemon Sauce

This quick and easy dish is perfect for a weeknight dinner. It can be made with virtually any kind of fish fillet, although sea bass and monk fish are particularly appropriate because they have a nice, meaty texture and are found in the Mediterranean region that inspires this sauce. Red snapper and ling cod would be great, too.

4 seafood fillets, 4 to 5 ounces each

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

For the sauce:

1 medium shallot, finely minced

1/2 cup Mediterranean olives, rinsed, pitted and halved

1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and chopped

1/2 cup chopped parsley

Zest of 1 medium lemon, finely minced

3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt

Season the fish fillets generously with salt and pepper.

Heat the olive oil over medium low heat in a skillet large enough to hold the fish fillets. Add the filets and cook gently until opaque, allowing about 10 minutes for each inch of thickness. Turn the fillets and remove from heat.

In a small bowl, mix all of the sauce ingredients and season to taste.

Spoon the sauce over the fish and serve with saffron rice and steamed asparagus or a salad of mesclun greens.

Serves 4.

Source: Stephanie Pearl Kimmel.

Tomato Soup With Red Wine and Kalamata Olives

This rich, delicious soup is equally good hot or chilled. It can be made in advance, but don't add the olives and fresh dill until you're ready to serve it. You may substitute other mild, brine-cured black olives if desired. Alphonsos work quite well. Serve with a crusty French bread for your guests to dunk in the luscious broth. If you can't get good fresh tomatoes, use canned rather than bland. A good-quality wine is essential here.

3 pounds fresh tomatoes, sliced (or 40 ounces canned tomatoes)

1/2 cup chopped onion

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups good-quality Bordeaux

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill (or 1 teaspoon dried)

2 tablespoons tomato paste

3 sprigs fresh parsley

1 small bay leaf

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

1 cup pitted and sliced Kalamata olives

1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, for garnish

Place all ingredients, except the olives and the dill for garnish, in a 3 1/2 - to 4-quart nonreactive pot. Bring to a boil, lower heat, cover, and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, until the tomatoes are tender.

Pour the soup through a sieve, pressing the solids with the back of a spoon to extract as much juice as possible.

Return the strained liquid to the wiped out soup pot and heat through, or cover, cool, and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

When ready to serve, reheat over medium heat or serve cold. Divide among serving bowls, distribute olives among the bowls, and top each with a sprinkling of dill.

Serves 4 to 6.

Source: Ford Rogers, author of "Olives: Cooking With Olives and Their Oils."

Features reporter Jim Boyd can be reached by phone at 338-2363 and by e-mail at [e-mail].