Travelling Hopefully - Monoculture Gone Mad Edition

 So it’s time to address the elephant in the room.  Olives; they have been a constant companion on our journey so far.  Whether growing by the side of the road or appearing on our dinner table at ridiculously inflated prices olives have dogged our steps as we make our way through Spain.  

Now that we head for the Portuguese border it is time to give these little round greasy things their due with a blog entry in their honour.

Olives were introduced into Spain in 1923 as part of a cultural exchange programme with Ethiopia.  At first the Spanish didn’t know what to do with them and stored them in a warehouse in Seville.  A carelessly dropped match from a security guards cigarette led to the biggest conflagration in Seville’s history.  So much damage was done that the government of Seville seriously considered building another cathedral on the ruins.

Fortunately sanity prevailed but while fighting the blaze Seville firefighters commented on the purity of the flames and the lack of smoke.  Gripped with excitement the Spanish authorities begged the Ethiopian government to provide them with more.  At this point the Ethiopians broke down and admitted they had bought the lot cheap in a Greek garage sale.

Diplomatic negotiations took place with the Greek authorities and a few months later cheering crowds greeted a Greek cargo vessel as it unloaded its precious cargo at Seville’s docks.  A desperately planting program followed and a mere ten years later every dinner table in Spain was adorned with olives.  In fact olives completely supplanted oleander as the preferred meal accompaniment for the Spanish people.  Coincidentally a sudden reduction in the dinner time mortality rate helped a population boom in Spain boosting the nation’s population from a few thousand to the burgeoning numbers we see today.

Of course today olive trees have spread to the extent that there is barely any room for Spaniards and the government is seriously considering declaring them a noxious weed.  All of which simply proves the old saying “Beware of Ethiopians bearing Greek gifts.”