the trinity

Olives. . . Capers. . .and Anchovies, oh my!

Olives

The rugged olive tree hails from Greece and thrives in the similar climate--hot and dry--of southern Italy. An evergreen known for its silvery green leaves that have come to symbolize abundance, glory, and peace, its fruit is harvested late in the year, in November and December. The once-popular harvesting method or brucatura, pulling one olive at a time off full branches, has given way to using machines that clamp on the trunk to gently shake the tree, with netting around the base of the tree to catch the released olives. Due to their high acidic content, freshly picked olives can't be consumed until they are fermented: cure dried with salt, brine, or oil or dry roasted. Best eaten at room temperature as an aperitif or generously added to pastas or meat dishes to build flavor.

Chef White's favorites

Castelvetrano: My favorite olive by far because it has low brine. It's a very meaty olive by way of Sicily--bright green in color and tastes like candy. They are not too salty, with sweetness to them. Take a heavybottomed pan, smash the olives, remove the pits, and you can spread it right onto toast--they are amazing. Because it's not an aggressive-tasting olive, it's awesome with fish. Eating a Castelvetrano gives you a different perspective on olives!

Ligurian Black Olive: From Liguria and similar in taste to a French niçoise olive. Handpicked in the hills of the Italian Riviera, these small brownish-black olives are cured in fresh, laurel-scented brine. Meaty with a full aromatic flavor.

Gaeta : Small black olives that are wither dry-cured (making them wrinkle) or brinecured (making them smooth and dark purple in color). Very flavorful.

Cooking tips

Don't pair a strong-tasting olive like a Gaeta with a salty dish--like fish. Use olives to build and complement a dish. Warming them up in a pan with your meat or fish or pasta accentuates the flavor of the dish.

Capers

Also introduced by the Greeks, caper bushes grow wild in coastal areas with a similar penchant for full sun as the olive tree. A perennial spiny shrub, its fruit--a dark olivegreen bud the size of a kernel of maize--is also called a caper. Caper berries, the second bud of the plant, with seeds and a stamen, are also gaining popularity and, like the caper, are pickled before consumption in either salt or a salt-and-vinegar solution. This creates an intense pungent flavor best described as a combination of mustard and black pepper.

Chef White's favorites

Pantelleria: These are the finest, without question! They come from a tiny volcanic island off the coast of Sicily, where they are pickled in salt. I find capers in salt have a more delicate flavor so that when you wash off the salt, there is more of the caper's essence left intact. Capers can also lose some of their texture to brine as well.

Cooking tips

The beauty of capers is that, on the flavor spectrum, they can be sweet, sour, or salty. So if you don't want to add a heavy taste, cook them out in your dish. Adding raw capers to the end of the cooking process brings more intensity to the plate. Salmoriglio is a condiment that graces the Italian table just like ketchup does in America. It's very versatile, consisting of anchovy, onion, oregano, lemon juice, and olive oil with a base of capers. It's left out on the table in a bowl and pairs well with everything from steamed vegetables and chicken to fish.

Anchovies

This small, common saltwater fish, related to the herring, breeds abundantly in the temperate waters of the Mediterranean, although overfishing has become a source of concern in recent years. While fresh anchovies have a mild flavor, the stronger taste usually associated with these fish occurs due to the curing process. Anchovies are generally gutted, salted in brine, and later preserved in either salt or olive oil. They are added whole to dishes or salads or ground into a paste or "garum" for seasoning.

Chef White's favorites

Porto salvo Anchovies: These are from Sicily and are the best you will ever eat because instead of being salty, they have sweetness to them. Red in color and cured with just enough salt and bottled in this amazing yellow oil, they are the Rolls Royce of anchovies. I've watched people eat them right out of the jar!

Cooking tips

Anchovies are so versatile, you can add them just about anywhere as a flavor-building block, and unlike capers and olives, they disintegrate when they cook out, so no one even knows when they are in a dish! A great way to get the flavoring is by adding a few drops of Colatura di Alici from Cetara on the Amalfi Coast--the clarified drippings (blood and juices) of the anchovies. Use it as a substitute for salt in a recipe. Make a puree and serve with radishes. Pour the anchovies into a blender and whip. You end up with a mayonnaise-like consistency: very light and frothy.