Our olives take one: the busa

Actually, just one of the busa varieties: the busa femmina di Dignano, or female busa. Big, rounded and meaty, this olive variety is native from our very town of Dignano.

Her tree is like the oil she produces: benign, not much wild, and somewhat delicate. Anyway, I think it may be better to leave aside the agricultural details and pass on to what you might find more interesting: her oil.

It does not exceed in bitterness, spiciness or flavors, nor does it have an electric green colour like some of its peers, but is a perfect match for any kind of delicate dishes. It does not impone itself on the tastes, but rather accompany them and enhance them in a diminutive, understated way. In few words, if you need the double bass of the olive oils, with the busa you can't go wrong!

Olive orchards in the moonlight

Summer's here, and in full swing too. Since it was a full moon few days ago, I decided to take a late evening stroll in the orchards (it's quite warm already here in Istria!).

Dusk in the olive grove near Dignano (Vodnjan)

Passing from one orchard to the other, I was thinking about the people who used to work them in the past days, and how were the nights they would spend in the casitas (or kažuni) when late work, or bad weather, kept them in the fields overnight. A small digression here - the casita is a small stone building, usually integrated in the stone walls surrounding the fields of southern Istria (mainly). I suppose there are thousands of them in the area, as almost each field had one...

So, I tried to recreate a semblance of life in them, and these are some preliminary results:

 

A casita close to Peroj, in the moonlight

  I like to think that the olives enjoy some human company, and who knows, maybe the fields, and the stones themseves do too?

 

Did it look like this, two hundred years ago?

It was a nice stroll anyway, and I almost forgot, our olives are working hard on your next oil!