Rick Caminiti dotCOM

Ok, in a conversation last night involving heavy drinking, the topic of Olives came up, and I randomly shouted out… what the “F” is a Pimento and who the hell decided to put it in an olive!?!?  Funny thing is, no one knew.  I put a post-it note on the fridge (because I go there a lot ) telling me to find out what the hell a pimento is before the end of the day.

Well here I am, and I still have olives and pimentos, but I am a little more knowledgeable about them now.  I googled it and found a cleverly titled page called “What is a pimento and why is it in my olive“.  According to the research THEY did, they could only speculate on why pimentos are in olives, but at least I know what the hell a pimento is:

pimiento; pimento A large, red, heart-shaped sweet pepper that measures 3 to 4 inches long and 2 to 3 inches wide. The flesh of the pimiento (the Spanish word for “pepper”) is sweet, succulent and more aromatic than that of the red bell pepper… Pimientos are the familiar red stuffing found in green olives. 

All freshly picked olives, no matter how ripe, have a vile, intensely bitter taste. In order to make them palatable, they must be pickled. Since pimentos are sweet and indigenous to the Mediterranean, it’s easy to imagine an innovative farmer or chef way back when thinking they would make the perfect neutralizer to the olive’s natural acidity. After all, aren’t the best dishes created with ingredients most readily available?