November 12 - Vassili took us to an oil press today. We loaded up 10 bags of olives, each weighing about 60 lbs., into the back of his truck, and off we went. He told me that, on average, each tree yields about five gallons of oil, but I read the yield can go as high as 20 gallons. It is, as the Psalmist noted, "oil out of the flinty rock."
According to Exodus 27:20, they were to provide "beaten oil" for the lamps in the temple. “And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always." The olives are ground and mashed, put into baskets, and the first oil which drips from the bottom is known as "beaten oil." It is superior in quality, containing less particulate matter, and consequently it burns cleaner. The earliest stratum of the Talmud, the Mishnah, tells us about two grades of oil in Bible times. “The first crop is when the fully ripe olives are picked from the top of the tree; they are brought into the olive-press, are ground in a mill and put into baskets. The oil which oozes out is the first kind [of oil]. They are then pressed with the beam, and the oil which oozes out is the second kind”. (Menachot 86a).
Update: Vassili said we got 25 gallons of oil, and he was quite happy! It turns out that the oil is split 50/50 between the farmer and the press operator. He gave us two large plastic water bottles of fresh oil. And since I put olive on almost everything, we were also thrilled! The Greeks like to put salt, lemon, and sometimes a little oregano with their oil.
The olives are washed in water
The clean olives are conveyored up, sliced and reduced to a pulp
This machine mashes the pits and the flesh of the fruit into a paste.
Looking inside the masher at the slowly moving blades
This machine separates the paste into water and oil. The yellow oil is dripping into the far pan; brown water is gushing into the near pan.
The fresh oil is split between the farmer and the press owner
An interesting process!
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