Dried fish

[docoflove1974]

Present-day Italians preserve meat in olive oil, too. My dad will dry sausage in the attic, in the winter, and then preserve the cut pieces in olive oil. It works. So in addition, salting, and pickling, we have "olive oiling."

 

Oh yeah! The story goes that when my grandmother and her family moved from 'the sticks' (Watsonville, CA is a bit off the coast; near Monterey) to San Francisco, my great-grandmother was overjoyed that she could finally afford olive oil (this was 1925). She evidently did the same olive oil curing with certain meats. I have no idea what, though; probably dry sausage, but seeing as how my grandmother could cook, um, not so well, and didn't carry on anything her mother did, many of those recipes are lost. Her sister, my great-aunt, does do many of the same recipes, but olive oil curing is not one of them.

 

Of course, all of these types of preservation one can still see with the various olives of the world--salt-cured, oil-cured, brined, heavy on the vinegar. It's taken me many years to be able to eat these lovelies, as many brines don't agree with me. But once I had ready access to all the other yum-yums, I figured out the wonders of the olive-eating world! (But give me extra-virgin, a little balsamico, cracked pepper, and fresh crusty bread...I'm in total heaven!)