Press » Once Upon a Time, When Olives Were Chic
Bill Daley, Tribune staff reporter
It's hard to believe that at one point in American history the California black olive was a chic, edible status symbol. Olive trees had been brought to California in the 18th Century by Spanish missionaries, mostly for oil, said Judith M. Taylor, author of "The Olive in California: History of an Immigrant Tree." She said the table-olive business was strictly a cottage industry in 19th Century California.
A scrappy widow named Freda Ehmann changed all that.
Ehmann owned an olive orchard in Oroville, Calif., in the 1890s. Faced with little production and falling olive oil prices, she realized she needed another outlet for her olive crop. Experimenting on her back porch with 280 gallons of olives, she hit upon a curing process that won raves.
No dummy, Ehmann took to the road with her product, signing contracts in markets across the country. Suddenly olives were a national industry.
"A writer described the arrival of [Ehmann's] olives in Indiana. They had a lot of social cachet," Taylor said. "They were the newest thing out of the West."
The demand for table olives grew. In 1912, two brothers, Arthur and Henry Bell, purchased an olive orchard in Reedly, Calif. In 1930, they moved into canning, distributing and marketing their Bell brand, which was the forerunner to today's Bell-Carter Foods Inc. Arthur Bell moved to Berkeley, Calif., to run the packing plant while Henry Bell tended the olive groves.
Like Freda Ehmann, Arthur Bell was a born salesman.
Jud Carter, Arthur Bell's grandson, recalls hearing stories of his grandparents taking the ferry over to San Francisco to drum up business.
His grandmother would sit at the lunch counter and order a "chopped olive" sandwich.
"The waitress would look at her kind of funny," he said. "And guess who came in the next day with a can of chopped olives."
But then Carter's grandfather would also tell restaurateurs that chopped olives were the "islands" in Thousand Island salad dressing.
Clearly, Arthur Bell had vision--and good olive taste.
Marlena Spieler, a California-born and England-based food writer, certainly loves the chopped-olive sandwiches she first sampled as a girl.
"I keep meaning to write a column on them because there are many different types of olive sandwich," she said. "Mine is olive, egg, green onion and mayo on whole wheat with lettuce. Mmmm."
It's hard to believe that at one point in American history the California black olive was a chic, edible status symbol. Olive trees had been brought to California in the 18th Century by Spanish missionaries, mostly for oil, said Judith M. Taylor, author of "The Olive in California: History of an Immigrant Tree." She said the table-olive business was strictly a cottage industry in 19th Century California.
A scrappy widow named Freda Ehmann changed all that.
Ehmann owned an olive orchard in Oroville, Calif., in the 1890s. Faced with little production and falling olive oil prices, she realized she needed another outlet for her olive crop. Experimenting on her back porch with 280 gallons of olives, she hit upon a curing process that won raves.
No dummy, Ehmann took to the road with her product, signing contracts in markets across the country. Suddenly olives were a national industry.
"A writer described the arrival of [Ehmann's] olives in Indiana. They had a lot of social cachet," Taylor said. "They were the newest thing out of the West."
The demand for table olives grew. In 1912, two brothers, Arthur and Henry Bell, purchased an olive orchard in Reedly, Calif. In 1930, they moved into canning, distributing and marketing their Bell brand, which was the forerunner to today's Bell-Carter Foods Inc. Arthur Bell moved to Berkeley, Calif., to run the packing plant while Henry Bell tended the olive groves.
Like Freda Ehmann, Arthur Bell was a born salesman.
Jud Carter, Arthur Bell's grandson, recalls hearing stories of his grandparents taking the ferry over to San Francisco to drum up business.
His grandmother would sit at the lunch counter and order a "chopped olive" sandwich.
"The waitress would look at her kind of funny," he said. "And guess who came in the next day with a can of chopped olives."
But then Carter's grandfather would also tell restaurateurs that chopped olives were the "islands" in Thousand Island salad dressing.
Clearly, Arthur Bell had vision--and good olive taste.
Marlena Spieler, a California-born and England-based food writer, certainly loves the chopped-olive sandwiches she first sampled as a girl.
"I keep meaning to write a column on them because there are many different types of olive sandwich," she said. "Mine is olive, egg, green onion and mayo on whole wheat with lettuce. Mmmm."
Chicago Tribune, August 31, 2005
