Caltech Celebrates All Things Olive at November Olive Harvest Festival

PASADENA, Calif.--It is one of the oldest known cultivated trees in the world--the olive tree--dating back at least 6,000 years. And throughout the ages, olives have had a ubiquitous presence in world cultures--as nutrition, as a medicinal and health elixir, and as a beauty aid. In today's times, olives will play a novel role as part of an environmental sustainability initiative at the California Institute of Technology.

On November 2, Caltech will host its first-ever Olive Harvest Festival--an all-day and evening campuswide event that will include not only the actual harvesting of olives from the trees on campus, but also culinary demonstrations, olive-oil tasting, olive milling and pressing demonstrations, live music, dancing, dining, and an "Edible Tour" of the Caltech campus.

The campus has approximately 130 olive trees--in fact, one of the original main campus walkways is named the Olive Walk. Heretofore, the trees dropped their fruit, littering and staining the walkways and creating a sidewalk nuisance. In support of Caltech's environmental initiative to recycle and be "green," the fruit will now be harvested and pressed into olive oil.

From 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., November 2, volunteers from the entire Caltech community will gather and break into small groups to harvest the olives by hand into five-gallon buckets, utilizing ladders, rakes, tarps, and cherry pickers. Once harvested, the olives will be forklifted into trucks and sent to the Santa Barbara Olive Company for pressing and bottling.

The Olive Harvest Festival will also feature cooking demonstrations, which will be conducted from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., with chefs from the Athenaeum, Caltech's faculty club, along with students and staff from Campus Life, showing how to infuse olive oil, bake an olive-oil cake, and make pasta, paella, and even olive-oil sorbet.

Olive milling and pressing demonstrations will take place from noon to 5 p.m., utilizing a new mill and press custom-designed especially for Caltech by Centerline Welding in El Monte. The press is designed to be hand operated by a crew of 10 people at once, pushing 1,600-pound wheels. The elaborate process entails washing the olives, loading them into the mill, crushing them, filtering the pulp in cheesecloth bags, centrifuging them, and then skimming off the oil.

Ice-sculpture demonstrations will take place from 4 to 6 p.m., where participants will learn the basics of ice carving.

The "Edible Tour of Campus" will be on-going from noon to 5 p.m., showing groups how to find, recognize, and prepare plants and herbs around campus.

The day will culminate with an expansive Olive Harvest Dinner from 5 to 9 p.m. The Mediterranean-themed dinner, led by Athenaeum executive chef Kevin Isacsson, will feature an abundance of breads and olive oil throughout the meal, and will include live music and dancing into the evening.

The olive oil will be sold in the Caltech Bookstore, with the proceeds going to fund student scholarships and activities.

If the public has olive trees on their property, and would like to participate in the Olive Harvest Festival, they can contact Caltech by e-mail at [email protected] or call (626) 395-4622.

For more information on the Olive Harvest Festival, visit http://olives.caltech.edu.