Damaeus wrote:
>
> In news:rec.food.cooking, Mark Thorson > posted on Thu,
> 18 Mar 2010 16:51:03 -0800 the following:
>
> > It's true that the French salt-cured olives I can buy at Whole Foods are
> > a completely different thing. And you can learn to recognize the really
> > good ones, which are more delicate, and only pick out those ones when
> > buying from their olive bar. They are very salty, but I'd never soak
> > them.
>
> But don't olives taste rather bitter if they haven't been salted to Hell
> and back?

Olives are naturally very bitter, and the purpose
of curing them is to remove that bitterness.

A favorite trick of olive farmers is to show
visitors the olive trees laden with dark, ripe
olives and invite them to try one. Invariably,
they have to spit it out because it is so
darn bitter, while the farmer is laughing his
ass off.