(coming soon)
Croatia
Olive Groves
Olives, and particularly their oil, form a major ingredient in the Croatian diet. As one who is somewhat ambivalent about the flavor of olive oil, I had the impression that they put it on or in everything but ice cream. The taste improves slightly when you remind yourself how healthy olive oil is for your heart. But only slightly.
Along the coast north of Split, olive trees are abundant, almost as abundant as the stones. The two combine in the form of stone walls around groves of olive trees.
In the lower left of the picture set above, a “magarac” (donkey) waits to carry sacks of freshly picked olives. Above that is a deeply gnarled old tree which probably would have been culled from a commercial grove long ago. Regardless of primary vocations or professions, it is common for Croatian families to have at least a few olive trees in the countryside and to pick and process their own crop. In this sense, as well as large-scale export income, you could say that olives are to Croatia what coconuts are to the Indian state of Kerala.
