This recipe is characteristic of the olive picking period in Tuscany (the jars where then ready for the Christmas season, served as a delicious appetizer together with various cold cuts and cheeses, such as pecorino).

In a salad bowl, season the olives with the orange zest (cut into thin strips), the thinly sliced garlic, the crushed chilli pepper and the olive oil. Mix thoroughly, put the seasoned olives into a jar, wait for a week and… taste them. They are delicious served with other types of olives, with aperitifs or as an appetizer with cold cuts, cheese and crostini.

(1) The old process for ”purifying” the olives (drying them so they lose the vegetation water, which makes fresh olives particularly bitter) was curious. The olives were hung in small cloth bags by the fireplace, which was always alight in farmhouses, and they slowly dried out in roughly 10 days.