Olive Varieties

Olives, in Mediterranean Cuisine are most often eaten out of hand though cooks also use them to flavor everything from pizzas to martinis. Raw olives must be cured before they can be eaten.
Curing medium is usually lye, brine or salt that affects their flavor and texture; even their degree of ripeness when picked affects the same. Green olives are picked while unripe which makes them denser and more bitter than the others. Brown or Black olives stay on the tree until fully ripened. Olives become bitter when cooked too long; so always add them to hot dishes at the last minute. Opened cans or jars of olives should be refrigerated; but some olives can be stored at room temperature if they are submerged in brine or olive oil.

Black Varieties

• Aleppo
• Alphonso
• Black Bella di Cerignola
• Gaeta / Gyeta
• Greek Black Amphissa / Amfisa
• Greek Black Kalamata
• Greek Black Royal / Victoria / Royal Victoria
• Ligurian
• Lugano
• Marche
• Mission
• Moroccan dry-cured / Moroccan oil-cured olive / Moroccan salt-cured olive
• Nicoise
• Nyons
• Ponentine
• Seracena
• Spanish black Empeltre
• Toscanelle

Green Varieties

• Agrinion
• Arauco
• Arbequina
• Atalanta / Atalanti
• Green Bella di Cerignola
• Greek green Nafplion
• Greek green Ionian
• Moroccan green
• Provencal
• Raw green
• Kura
• Lucque
• Picholine
• Sevillano / Queen olive
• Sicilian
• Spanish green Manzanila / Spanish pitted olives

Others

• Hondroelia - Juicy meaty olive