America the Bountiful

[Capri] In the sun kissed groves of central California, a tree fruit unlike any other is finding a new voice.

Alright, I'm having way too much fun.

I can tell.

[Capri] Long revered in the Mediterranean...

The ancient Olympians once anointed their bodies with olive oil.

[Capri] ...it's finding new expressions...

It smells green.

Right.

But like grassy and fresh too.

Yes, grassy.

[Capri] ...In the hands of those who honor tradition.

This dish is significant in our Greek culture, and we like to set the table and enjoy these pies together.

[Capri] Yet are bold enough to give the world something new.

We actually put olive oil and ice cream together to make a milkshake.

This is fantastic.

I'm Capri Cafaro and I'm on a mission to uncover the incredible stories of the foods we grow... ...harvest, create... ...and celebrate.

Beautiful, amazing meal.

So, I'm traveling America's backroads to learn our cherished food traditions... Whoa.

...from those who make them possible... Look at that.

...and are helping keep them alive.

There is so much more to learn.

Whoa!

[Capri] On "America the Bountiful."

[announcer] America's farmers have nourished us for generations, but today they face unprecedented challenges.

American Farmland Trust works with farmers to help save the land that sustains us.

Together we can work to keep America bountiful.

[Capri] Originally called the food of the gods in ancient Greece, olives have been cultivated in the region surrounding the Mediterranean Sea for roughly 7,000 years.

They were first bought to America and planted in California in the 18th century by Spanish Catholic Franciscans.

By the early 20th century canned black ripe olives had become the major California olive product.

However, in the 21st century, the California olive oil industry has emerged as a major player in the global marketplace.

Whether for oil, or eating whole, California currently produces 95 percent of the olives grown in the United States.

Alexandra Kicenik Devarenne is an olive historian, director of the Extra Virgin Alliance, and author of, "Olive Oil: A Field Guide."

Olives and olive oil are really popular amongst Americans.

Amongst pretty much everybody.

But they're really special here in California.

Tell me how olives showed up here in this state.

Olives came to California from Spain, with the Spanish, and the way they came actually into California was with the missions.

The Franciscans established a string of missions up Alta California, what was called New Spain, and that's where we are right now.

This is San Francisco De Solano, one of the missions and it was, in fact, the very last one established and the farthest north.

The missions had mission gardens, and they planted olive trees and used the olives for olive oil and also for table olives, and the primary use of olive oil in a mission would be sacramental.

Anointment.

Anointment.

Makes sense.

It is very important to have holy oil, and that is olive oil that has been blessed.

These were picked off one of these trees that surrounds us, and you can see what they look like, and those are what we know now as mission olives.

One green and one black, but from the same tree?

From the same tree.

All olives begin life green, and then eventually turn black.

Now those came right off the tree.

I don't know if they're ready to eat yet, but you've got some here that I might be able to taste.

I can guarantee those are not ready to eat.

Okay.

If you were to taste those, it would be one of the most bitter things you have ever had in your mouth.

Okay, let's avoid that.

Let's avoid that.

These ones, I think, are ready to go.

They are.

These are a brine-cured, traditional cured, mission olive.

If you want to try one of those.

[Capri] I do.

You will get an idea of what they're like, traditional cure.

Not bad.

Not bad at all.

Like, I definitely-- It's very briny.

I tried to avoid the pit.

It's okay.

It is briny, but you're also getting a little bit of bitterness.

Yes, you're right.

You're right.

So, that's part of the natural flavor of the olive that's been preserved by this particular curing process.

That's so interesting.

Now where can I get my hands on these?

Well, these came from Corning.

I have heard that Corning is called Olive City.

[Alexandra] Uh-huh.

So, I'm going to have to explore for myself and get a little bit more of the story behind these olives.

There you go.

[Capri] Corning first earned the name "Olive City" back in 1923 when the table olive industry began to boom in the area.

Local fixture, the Olive Pit, has been selling every kind of olive product imaginable for more than 50 years.

Hannah Boeldt carries on the family legacy started by her grandparents, Pete and Ann Craig, in 1967.

I had never seen so many olives, different types of olives in one place.

Where do I even start?

There a lot of choices.

Everything is delicious.

We have well over 90 flavors of olives to try.

We have an awesome bleu cheese stuff that's delicious.

That's a classic.

You can put a little olive in the cup and give it a try.

Alright, let me give this a shot.

It's a local Corning area olive grown and processed here in town.

So, this is a taste of olive city then?

Yes, exactly.

Any good way to do it, or just get at it?

Just go for it.

Alright.

Mmmm.

That is so good.

A little tang there with the bleu cheese and the brining of the olive.

Yes.

You can tell it's local.

Perfect to eat.

-Wow.

-In a martini.

Well of course, right?

Of course.

And then the artichoke is also great.

Artichokes are grown in California.

That's right.

I was just going to say.

So, that would be a fun one to try as well.

Okay.

You're just going to have to make some choices and see what you like.

This is also good.

I would have never thought of that combination...

It's a good mix.

...of artichoke and olives.

When you think about it though, you know, a lot of times you have the artichokes that are brined or pickled in the jars, and you put them on salads and that sort of thing.

So, it's kind of two things in one.

What a great idea.

Do you have something that you offer on the menu that is different and unique that maybe nobody else has?

[Hannah] We do.

We actually put olive oil and ice cream together to make a milkshake.

I'm slightly skeptical, so tell me, what am I getting myself into?

This is a surprising combo, but it kind of gives a little sherberty, kind of sweet and sour kind of thing.

So, I'd love for you to try that.

That's the blood orange olive oil.

Blood orange.

Oh, I see that here.

Alrighty, I'm going to test you on this.

People always ask, what to do with the flavors of olive oils?

Oh my gosh.

This is surprisingly good.

You know, this tastes like a creamsicle.

Yes.

With that blood orange.

This is fantastic.

I feel like I've gotten a taste of Olive City and maybe my next stop is going to have to be seeing how all of this actually happens to get from those orchards to our tables and of course into our mouths.

Wonderful.

[Capri] While the table olive industry thrived in Corning and throughout Central Californian for much of the 20th century, the industry has really shifted to focus on the production of olive oil in the past 20 years with hundreds of family farms growing olives meant for the press.

McEvoy Ranch is a 550 acre family farm in Petaluma growing olives to create extra virgin olive oil.

Samantha Dorsey currently serves as president and oversees the olive operation.

So, tell me how this olive orchard got started.

[Samantha] Well Capri, 35 years ago, Mrs. McEvoy purchased this beautiful 550 acre property in Petaluma.

[Capri] It is beautiful.

It is gorgeous.

And she imported 3,000 olive trees from Tuscany and those 3,000 trees was propagated out to produce all of the orchards that are planted here today.

What makes the climate here in this region of California so conducive to growing olives like this?

Well Capri, olives love the Mediterranean climate that we have here.

But they did come from Tuscany, so.

Exactly.

And so, McEvoy Ranch, we're in the Petaluma gap, AVA, which is very coastal, and it means we have warm summer days and cool nights with a fairly consistent sea breeze coming through here that's excellent for oil accumulation and oil flavor.

[Capri] How many different types of olives do you grow?

In these orchards here, we have seven different varieties of olives that are grown that we harvest all together and we make a field blend.

That sounds delicious and something I cannot wait to try.

But you're going to have to find a way to get the olives off the trees and into where they actually can turn into olive oil.

No doubt.

What does that process look like?

So, throughout the different orchards in California there's many different ways of harvesting the olives, some more mechanical than others.

Here we use hand held combs.

The olives fall onto tarps.

And I'd love to take you over to the crew that's harvesting now so we can look at how olives are harvested, and maybe you can try your hand at it too.

Well, twist my arm because I am totally ready to get one of these rakes in my hands and get those olives off the tree.

So, I'll follow your lead.

Let's do it.

[Capri] Fernando McGeary is farming supervisor at McEvoy Farms and leads the harvest team.

Whoa.

This is kind of scary.

What is this thing?

Okay.

Why do you start at the top?

I think I'm scared of this thing, but I still want to try it out.

Can I give it a shot?

Alright, let's do this.

Alright, is there a good method to the madness here?

Like brushing the hair.

Okay, we'll see.

Yeah.

You make it look so easy.

Wow, okay.

Why use this rake as opposed to another type of machine?

Does it help keep the quality of the olives?

Absolutely, Capri.

So, you'll notice that the olives are coming off totally unharmed, and once we collect them and bring them to the mill, they'll be in pristine condition for high quality olive oil.

So, once it's on the tarp then where does it go from there?

Alright, I'm having way too much fun.

I can tell.

I'm having way too much fun, and you've got to tell me.

I'm going to shut this off.

And we're going to pick up this fruit.

So, where are these olives going to go next?

[Samantha] Well Capri, we're going to gather them up here in the orchard and put them into half-ton bins, and bring them down to our frontoil, our olive mill.

Where we're going to be making extra virgin olive oil.

Look at this beautiful, beautiful olive fruit.

I know how hard the crew works here to get those olives off the trees and right here to start the process of making olive oil.

How much do you need?

How many olives do you need to make a bottle of olive oil?

Oh my gosh, so many, Capri.

So many.

So, we're looking at about a thousand pounds, and this will make about 20 gallons of olive oil, which should fill about 30 of our little bottles, our 375 milliliter bottles.

And how many olives go into one bottle?

So, that's going to take 800-900 hundred of these little babies.

Oh, wow.

Small but mighty.

So, how do we convert this giant pit of olives into the magic that is olive oil?

[Samantha] Alright Capri, so we're going to take these olives in here, we're going to dump them in the hopper right here and they're going to go up this conveyor belt and all the leaves are going to get blown out.

So, it will only be olives going in.

We'll crush them altogether, pits, olives, everything all at once, and make this beautiful paste.

The paste will go into the malaxer where it will gently turn for about 30 or 40 minutes.

And that's where the flavor really develops and where the oil absorbs the flavor from the other parts of the olive.

Once that flavor is imbued and fused into the oil, we'll send it to the decanter, and the decanter is where it will separate the oil from the rest of the byproducts.

All those other byproducts will come out the other side of the frontoil here where it will send them off to compost, and go back out onto our certified organic orchards.

So, after the decanter, the oil will go into the separator where it will wick away the last little bit of water so that the oil stays stable for the rest of the year.

And then Olio Nuovo comes out of the separator.

What is an Olio Nuovo?

So, it's our new oil, our brand new freshest oil.

It's an extraordinary seasonal product that you can only get right around the fall and the early winter.

[Capri] McEvoy Ranch reserves just 10 percent of their annual extra virgin oil production to bottle as oil Olio Nuovo.

[Samantha] We're going to taste like pros though.

[Capri] Okay.

So, I'll follow your lead.

So, you're going to want to warm your oil up just a little bit.

Okay.

And you're releasing the aromatic volatiles.

Aromatic volatiles, alright.

Yep.

I like it.

I like it.

And then we'll give it a little sniff test.

Alright, sniff, sniff.

So.

Yep.

[breathing deeply] Earthly.

[Samantha] Right, but like grassy and fresh too.

Yes, grassy, grassy.

Yep.

It smells green.

I don't know how else to describe it except for the fact that it smells green to me.

Okay, Capri, that's perfect because that's what you want to taste in an olive oil.

You want to taste freshness.

Okay, I understand now why you have to slurp.

This is my thesis on this, because it enables you to get the right places in your taste buds in the back.

Exactly.

Which are very tingly.

Yep.

Yep.

-Freshness.

-Yep.

I've never had an olive oil like this in my life.

It's pretty extraordinary.

It really is.

It really, really is.

[Samantha] And so, what we have here is our extra virgin olive oil that's one year oil.

To be extra virgin, you can have zero defects.

We're doing a little sniff, right?

You get the aromatics.

The aromatics, but not as strong.

Right.

It's definitely more subtle than the first one.

Exactly.

And typically, olive oils tend to mellow with age if you treat them right.

If you treat them poorly... How do you treat them right?

...they'll go rancid.

So, what do you do to treat them right?

Keep them cool.

Keep them in a dark place.

So, we've already given it a little sniff [breathing deeply] and now we'll want to give it a little slurp.

[slurping] So, as you said, it mellows.

Those key components are there that you talked about, those three key attributes.

Yep.

But there're just kind of dialed down a little bit.

Exactly, so olive oil, unlike other products, doesn't get better with age.

So, what you want to do as a consumer, if it's possible, look for a harvest date on the back of the bottle and look for the freshest you can buy.

Okay.

Because more likely it will taste better the fresher it is.

Well, more good pro tips because I feel like this is something that is a pantry staple.

So, I got one more to try.

What makes this one different than the other two?

Okay, this is our limited edition.

And every year our mill master and I try to choose the most special oil coming through the frontoil, and this year Capri, we've just chosen to do a single varietal, limited edition.

Okay.

And that's different because these other ones are blends, right?

Exactly.

And these have seven different varieties of olives in them, whereas our limited edition this year is just coratina.

Okay, I'm super excited to compare this to those.

Warm it up.

Yep.

Sniff, sniff, sniff.

[breathing deeply] -Oh my gosh.

-This is really grassy to me.

So, grassy.

Very grassy.

-Like freshly cut grass.

-Like freshly cut grass.

[slurping] That is really incredible.

Isn't that extraordinary?

A little peppery as well.

Good?

Yeah, absolutely.

That's gorgeous.

What's your favorite way outside of, you know, doing these very fancy tasting goblets and everything, what is one of your favorite ways to just eat olive oil and let that favor shine through?

Well, Capri you're talking to someone who adores olive oil.

I eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and desert.

But without going into all of that, how about we just share some bread with some of our Olio Nuovo because it's a really easy, lovely enjoyable way to appreciate olive oil.

Look at that color.

Oh, look at that color.

If you take a little piece here.

Get in there.

[Samantha] Oh my gosh, that's so good.

Mmmm.

And so good for you.

Way better than butter.

Yeah, and better for you.

It's unique and delicious and extraordinary.

That's so good.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me and thank you for breaking bread.

-Oh, a pleasure Capri.

-Can I come back?

Anytime, you know it.

-Fantastic.

[Capri] While olive oil production in America began less than 150 years ago, the ancient Greeks have a relationship that dates back thousands of years.

As one can imagine, the culinary traditions born from a culture that revered olives as the fruit of the gods, is one that places olives into all manner of savory delicacies.

One delicious example that is still popular in Greek American culture today is called Elopitakia and is a favorite recipe of Greek American chef, Krystina Kalapothakos.

I just love having a chance to spend time with somebody in their kitchen cooking something that you know and love so well, which is an incredible Greek olive dish.

Yes, we're going to be doing an amazing olive dish.

It's called Elopitakia.

Okay, help me out, Elopitakia.

Yeah, you almost said it.

Elias means "olives" in Greek and pitakia means "many pita pies."

We're going to start with kalamata olives.

Of course.

The pro tip here is to pat dry the olives, so you release the liquid.

Alrighty.

So, we have our spring onions.

Yum.

Alright.

We have the fresh oregano from my garden.

Of course.

-And dill.

-Add fresh dill.

Okay.

Putting this over here.

Then we have a little bit of honey.

I love honey as well.

I'm looking forward to this.

Okay.

And then black pepper.

And we're just going to blend that.

We're going to pulsate a few seconds.

Our dough that we have here is really simple, but different.

It's made up of orange juice, olive oil, baking powder, and salt.

It's amazing and the aroma from it, and the color of it, too.

Alright, I'm going to let you show me the best way because everybody has their own method.

If my grandma was here, my yiayia, grandma in Greek, she would be so proud because this is kind of what they used to use back in the day.

Are you looking for a certain thickness for the dough?

Yeah, one eighth inch thickness so it's very thin.

You want me to switch off?

You want to get in there?

Yeah, I'll get in there.

You can do the work.

So, what kind of history is behind this dish or at least olive oil and olives in Greek culinary culture?

This dish is really significant in our Greek culture specifically for Greek Orthodox Eastern.

And where all of the Greeks come together on one specific day, Easter, and we like to sit at the table and enjoy these pies together.

Food brings people together.

It brings families together.

Do you have any memories of doing this with your own family.

I do actually.

My mom and my dad.

My mom is non-Greek, but married to a Greek, and my father, he was huge on teaching the kids how to embrace their culture, the Greek culture.

So, we would make this together.

So, go ahead and dip that guy in the flour.

See, I was going to skip that stuff.

That's not good.

So, here you go.

And you're just going to make little circles like so.

I swear you've made this before.

[Capri] You know, maybe.

Greeks and Italians, were neighbors.

[Krystina] Yeah, we are.

So, we're going to take this in the palm of our hand, like so.

We're just going to flatten it down just a little bit in the center.

Okay.

Then we're going to take a teaspoon of the filling and place it in the center of the dough.

Ah, I'm going to watch you first because I feel like I'm going to mess this up.

It's okay.

Then you're going to fold it over like a moon shape and pinch the edges.

You did good.

Okay.

And then what's another working tip is you'll take the fork and pleat the outside edges.

You did perfect.

Look at that.

It's getting a little bit of a Greek food history lesson.

At least a Greek olive history lesson.

Actually, I could tell you something interesting.

The ancient Olympians, they once anointed their bodies with olive oil.

Oh, wow.

So, it's like sacred.

Yes.

And the winners would receive gifts, jars of olive oil as well as an olive wreath around their head.

Oh, wow.

And we're still doing that to this day with the Olympics.

We're still crowning the winners with the olive wreath.

So, these look like they're about ready to go in the oven.

Anymore steps we got to do?

Then we're going to egg wash.

This will give it a nice golden color.

A little shine.

A little bit of shine, yes.

And I see we've got sesame seeds here.

Yes, we've got sesame seeds.

You can add any kind of seed if you like.

You can take it off, add it on.

Now how long will these go into the oven?

We're going to have it at 375 for 30 minutes.

So, we're all set.

We're going to put them into the oven.

And then we already have some baking here, Capri, so we're going to take those out.

Good, so I don't have to wait this half an hour.

Yes.

Yes.

I get to try them.

You can try them now.

Nice and warm, and they look so crispy and perfect.

[Krystina] Isn't that beautiful?

Alright, I'm really excited.

This is a little bit hot.

Hopefully it won't burn my tongue because I'm not going to wait very long.

I think you'll be okay.

[Capri] Okay.

So, let's do this together.

Of course we have to do it together.

Greeks and Italians, were neighbors.

Yes, we are.

And food brings us together.

-Elopitakia.

-Elopitakia.

-Alright.

-Cheers.

Mmm.

This is fantastic.

I am transported.

What a balance of flavors.

I mean, weirdly enough the honey, I feel like does make a difference because it mellows out the tartness, for lack of a better term, or the bitterness of the olive.

And then when you have the dill, it comes through really well.

And then the mildness of the olive oil in the dough with a teeny, teeny touch of citrus.

You've got all the flavors going there.

All the flavors.

So, Elopitakia.

This is it.

Elopitakia.

-To Greece and to olives.

-To Greece.

[Capri] From grove to table, Californian's take pride in putting their stamp on this long revered tree fruit.

Whether destined for the oil press, a second life in brine, or an extra virgin milkshake that stops visitors in their tracks, the Westcoast remains the best coast to get your olive fix.

But why take my word for it, when you can come experience it for yourself.

America The Bountiful is waiting for you and me.

For more information visit Americathebountifulshow.com.

[announcer] America's farmers have nourished us for generations, but today they face unprecedented challenges.

American Farmland Trust works with farmers to help save the land that sustains us.

Together we can work to keep America bountiful.