Have been craving some green olives lately. While grabbing a jar of pimento stuffed olives, I noticed two varieties… one was “thrown” the other was “stuffed”. Not knowing which was which, I chose “stuffed”, specifically because it was priced a tad bit higher.
Why did I choose the higher priced? I thought maybe it had to do with the processing, in that possibly it would have a slightly different flavor. It was only a few cents higher, so nothing major.
Come to find out, it’s all about how they are packaged… in one case, the olives are literally “thrown” into the jar and the brine, etc it poured on top. In the “placed” case, the olives are placed more neatly, so the pimentos are showing.
It’s all about the neatness.
So what about this pimento? A pimento is a heart-shaped pepper about 3-4″ long. It’s a sweeter pepper than a red bell pepper. This is what they use to stuff green olives.
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I dearly love olives — green ones, black ones, stuffed ones and not stuffed. I just really like them and they are pretty good for you, too! Lots of those vitamins you need and low cholesterol as well. Didn’t know about the packing methods. Perhaps you get more in the not-thrown packaging??? Or do they sell by weight? I can’t remember.
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Now that you mention it, the weight was different, but I forget in which way. Maybe I did pay much too much for my nicely placed olives, ha!
I don’t think I’ve seen “Thrown” olives before .. I mean olives labeled that way.
We live in a very Greek neighborhood so we take advantage of the fact and buy olives and feta cheese in Greek bakeries. The olives are loose and in a salad bar type display. They usually offer several different types so we try different ones when we get olives. In the summer we tried some dark olives that were called Dried olives I believe. They were in oil but they looked wrinkly like a raisin. man did they taste good! Hmm now that I’m thinking of them we’ll have to try to get some more.
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On a recent trip from Bakersfield to Redding I stopped in Corning at the Olive Pit and purchased some olives. I was curious about how they manage to pack them so neatly in the jars. Your comments about “thrown” and “placed” are enlighting, but I still cannot find out if they are packed by hand or machine. I see olive packing machine advertised and assume the volumne would require machine packing. However, I have not found anything specific about how the machine actually does it. Any info in this regard would be appreciated.
I too, recently stumbled across “thrown” olives. I was selecting a small jar of olives for martinis. I noticed two jars, same brand, same variety olive, one 5.75 oz with an inverted funnel shape, another 5 oz of cylendrical shape. I didn’t notice the “neatness” of either pack. I did notice the price difference. The “thrown” olive were about half the price of the other. I bought the “thrown” and couldn’t tell any difference in flavor or texture, of course, after soaking them in my favorite Vodka “Tito’s”.
Checkout lady and onsite manager at Meijer’s grocery store did not know the meaning of “thrown” on an olive jar when I asked – Now don’t feel so bad I had to look it up when we got home.