As big as a Robin’s egg, mildly tart with a hint of sweetness, and just-perfect chewy only begins to describe an Ascolana olive. Biting into one is a much finer manner of introduction to this enticing little fruit…and I was lucky enough to experience this (over and over again) when recently in Ascoli Piceno.   

Olives on the Italian peninsula are nothing new, of course. Cultivation of olive trees and production of oil was firmly in place as far back as the VIII century BC, thanks to the Greek colonization of southern Italy. Olive oil was a prime economic commodity for both the Greek and subsequent Roman Empire; thus, widespread cultivation of a variety of olive producing trees took root, literally, across Italy. Revered as a symbol of life, health, and vitality, olive groves continue to blanket the Italian countryside today producing their treasured fruits in abundance now as then.