mAkiNg oLiVe Oil iS aN aRt...

We had an amazing experience yesterday and I'd like to give you my full report about how Olive Oil is produced...
Unfortunately there are not many places, called "lagares", where we can take our olives, as it needs big and I guess expensive machines...so, it's not actually something we can make by our own...we got to see how it was made in the old days... but it would be still impossible for us to do it... and I still didn't research enough to know how would they do it even before any big machine... just for fun... I saw it's a complex process and lots of work...
so, let me guide you on a tour, as they did with me on the "Lagar" in "Sobral do Campo"...

the day actually started very early when the sun was not even up...after my short night taking care of Mischu, I woke up at 6am to leave around 7...it was freezing...literally...

it's only the second time this year that froze... I even had to clean the front window of the car to be able to drive...
So we went to pick up Tia Adelina (our neighbour ) who lives in the village...she knew the way, and we were carrying our olives together in the tractor of Mr.Antonio... I very nice guy who gave me the tour in the "lagar"... for him it's all same old same old...but for me was an exciting adventure and learning a lot about olive oil ...
So, here's Mr. Antonio emptying the tractor to a huge funnel where all the process starts...this is just next the first picture on this blog, where you can see all the big piles of olives...so beautiful !!! 

so, from the funnel they come through this thing...where they get washed and cleaned from leaves and other stuff...

then they fall on this big container that takes them into another machine...

here they are warmed and crushed... ready to go to the next machine... 

This one here throws the wast waters out...actually, all these waters go to a huge tank called "hell"...I thought that was funny...

And from the same machine, on the front side... the olive oil comes out... beautiful... all this with a process of hot water... and pretty complex systems inside those machines... this tools you see in front of the picture are the measures to take the olive oil out of the big container where it's dropped ...

And here are the huge (everything is huge, eh, eh) containers of the "lagar", where then they serve the clients who want to buy... but this is for the ones who sell their olives to the "Lagar", because others, like us, brought the olive oil from our own olives... :-)

This is the "waist" from the crushed olives...which is not actually a waist at all... nothing is a waist here... even in "hell", they still go there and take some olive oil out after another process...

so, this "waist" here is still crushed again and some week oil is still extracted, good for frying... and still after that...

...the dried "waist" is used for fire...on this stove that warms the water that is gonna be used for the machines that make the olive oil ...Wow... this is recycling :-)...

Here is the older Machine, with 2 huge stones called "Mó"... it's still working...they run it for us to see...

Here they would  be put in layers and that machine would smashed them...

But anyway...lets look at our own olives now :-)

being crushed...
Coming out in the last machine...
And here it is !!!! beautiful... and tasty !!!
Here they were filling up the containers for us to take...
This is all the olive we took... not ours, this is Tia Adelina's and some other people from Povoa de Atalaia that Mr. Antonio brought...

with our 200 Kl of Olives we took 30 liters of olive oil... 2 weeks work of me and Jared... and I still payed 25 Euros for the "Lagar"... I could have give them 6 liters of our olive oil, but it was not so much, so I thought it would be better to take all...

Tia Adelina payed Mr. antonio for the transport, and she wouldn't let me pay my share as I took the car she said... bless her !!!

And I still got a present from the owner of the "Lagar"... a bin to make our water heater...Hmmm... warm showers soon !!!
This was really cool too...actually, all the people there were very friendly... it was like a big family...
May God allow this work to continue for many years and many generations...they started 40 years ago this one...and many are closing because they cannot keep up with the demandings of the EU...
There is very good olive oil in Portugal, but we just cannot compete with the prices...
I guess we need more fair trade here as well...