Glimpsing A Day of Fieldwork #2
First of October and first day of harvest happened. Most people that I collaborate with are yet a week or two from raccolta, but one contributor started already yesterday, and let me tell you, what a thrilling day of fieldwork I had!
Early start for me driving from Ostuni. The moon all golden, dazzlingly gold-colored really, and the break of dawn just cracking as I arrive in Castri di Lecce just before 6 am. Concerned to be on time, I end up half an hour early, time pessimist as I am. I park across the street from the premise and practice some Italian vocabulary using my flashcards while waiting for the guys. They arrive just before 6.30 am, we drink coffee, of course, and then they get to it; preparing for taking all machinery and tools to the campagna to be harvested that is. Me, still too new to both the practices and the gang, merely take notes of what happens. Literally and pictorially. Jottings occur in my notebook. Meanwhile, pictures are taken; most as a sort of visual reference, others for pure aesthetic reasons. On the side of aesthetic falls the photo of the garage, for I cannot help but loving the way that the light strikes through the tiny windows at this hour. Gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.
It is a beautiful and quite chilly morning. At least I think so, but the guys wearing t-shirts seem not too bothered with the temperature falling below 20 degrees. Maybe they do not think about the morning as beautiful either hits me now. I never really got to ask, nor can I recall that anyone commented on the mattina as bellissima, but then again, the weather rarely occur as an everyday topic of conversation, as it does in Sweden where I come from. In any event, using a series of machinery, such as a trunk-shaker with an umbrella, an olive-non olive separator and handheld harvesting combs, this morning, beautiful or not, chilly or not, raccolta 2020/2021 takes its start. The method used is quite labor intensive, as only one of the umbrella-tractors feature a shaking devise while the other act just as collector. This means that many olives ought to be harvested only by the vibration caused by the abbacchiatori, by the handheld combs that is, and as you might imagine, it takes far more effort for a human than a machine to shake off the olives from each plant (the semi-mechanical feature of the former considered). That said, the former technique arguably occurs a gentler method of harvesting since only branches are vibrated and not the entire olive plant, for which reason I know that some practitioners prefer this one so not to harm the shallow and rather fragile roots of the plants. Moreover, I am at this particular day told that while the trunk-shake-technique (if used by itself) mostly cause more mature olives to drop, one may with the abbacchiatori also collect less mature ones, consequently, collect the raw material needed to make olive oils rich in phenolic compounds – polyphenols – which is key to make extra virgin oils further down the production process. Being on the topic of classifications, which I am a sucker for questioning, what constitutes extra virgin oil seemingly depends both on temporal dimensions of olive maturation and oil extraction. Hence, how different practitioners correlate the quality of their oil, let alone come to categorize them either as virgin or extra virgin, relationally to different dimensions of temporality will definitely be of ethnographic concern engaging this project.
The two orchards harvested this forenoon are located in the midst of an area highly affected by Xylella fastidiosa, wherefore most surrounding orchards appear dried-out and overgrown—unyielding of fruit and not to be harvested any time soon, if ever again. Fortunate enough to have just under 12 000 plants of the Leccino variety, which occurs a Xylella fastidiosa resistant cultivar, this producer may continue his business also in this plant bacterium affected of times, if yet with a struggle to make ends meet as yields obviously appears much lower than were the full production capacity of 65 000 plants yieldable (considerable fact is also that not all plants yield fruit any given year, as yieldabilities vary with pruning activities as well as with the biennial growth habit of olive plants). And this matter, among others, is something I spend much of this harvest day reflecting upon – the yields, the work put into harvesting, the machineries and tools used, the struggles accompanied the presence of Xylella, the end product, the overall supply chain, the viability of making olive oil – not least as I go around collecting olives from trees either yielding too little to bother harvesting with any type of machinery or too many mosca disturbed olives, something that affects the quality of the oil. I also collect olives flown beyond the scope of the umbrellas on the ground. I pick as many as I can, for believe me, every olive count, for it takes a huge amount of olives producing just a liter of oil. How many liters totally gained from the roughly 500 kg we harvested yesterday together with those harvested today remains to be known, as they are pressed this afternoon. So is the quality of the oil.
On that note, and by way of wrapping up so that I may hit the road back to Castri di Lecce shortly, let me tell you, if yesterday was a wonderful day initiating the first olive harvest of this year, today will most surely be an equally wonderful one as the pressing thereof happens. I look so much forward to participate for it is indeed a most exciting and sensuously imbued event to experience the becoming of olive oil; in the campagna, via the frantoio, throughout the production process. I know this for I have experience of it all, if yet relatively limited of sorts up to this point. But that is about to change and my experience about to expand, and I start today, as I for the first time will have the opportunity to also partake in the quality measurements taking place in the pressing facilities. Hopefully, lots of new awareness appear and hopefully I get firsthand taste of some of that newly pressed monocultivar Leccino olive oil. Matter of fact, I better get going, for I can by the bare remembrance of last year’s olive oil extraction experiences already sense my mouth water, my throat tickle and my nose thrill by the sensational event of olive oil it its becoming. Ci vediamo!
