Black olives (sliced)
Mild, canned ripe black olives — the standard American pizzeria and chain-menu olive topping, milder and less briny than the already-catalogued Mediterranean-style Kalamata olive.
- Salt
- moderate
- Fat
- low
- Sweetness
- low
- Acidity
- low
- Heat
- none
- Moisture
- low
- Umami
- moderate
- Cooking requirement
- raw ready to eat
Preparation
Pre-sliced into rings — canned, California-style ripe olives are the most common pizza form — and drained before topping
Scattered evenly as rings rather than piled; a milder cure and colour than green or Kalamata olives
Applied before baking.
Cautions
- milder and less fruity than kalamata-olives — the two are not directly interchangeable in a recipe calling for a specific character
History and cultural context
The shiny, uniformly black, mild-flavoured sliced olives standard on much American commercial pizza are a specifically Californian industrial product, not a naturally ripened Mediterranean black olive. California's olive-canning industry, historically the dominant use of the state's olive crop (which accounts for the large majority of US olive acreage), harvests olives green and cures them with lye before exposing them to air to oxidise them to a uniform black colour — a different process, and a different eating experience, from naturally cured, brine- or oil-packed Mediterranean black olives such as Kalamata.
Traditional regions: California, United States
The standard sliced-olive pizza topping on much commercial and chain pizza in the United States specifically.
Less prominent outside North America, where naturally cured Mediterranean-style olives are more typically used where olives appear as a topping at all.
Also known as: California ripe olives
Commonly repeated, and not supported
- That these are simply green olives left to ripen naturally to black on the tree — the characteristic uniform black colour is produced by an industrial lye-curing and oxidation process, not natural ripening.
- California's olive processing industry shifts from canning to crushing — United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service
Pairs well with
- Onion
Explicitly noted as a good balance for Black olives (sliced). Adds textural contrast against Black olives (sliced).
- Bell pepper
Explicitly noted as a good balance for Black olives (sliced). Adds textural contrast against Black olives (sliced).
- Pickled red onion
Explicitly noted as a good balance for Black olives (sliced). Adds textural contrast against Black olives (sliced).
- Fresh arugula (rocket)
Adds textural contrast against Black olives (sliced). Best added fresh after baking, for brightness against Black olives (sliced).
- Pepperoni
Adds textural contrast against Black olives (sliced).
- Soppressata
Adds textural contrast against Black olives (sliced).