Fun olive facts

A FEW fun facts about olives:

• Olives have been around for thousands of years, appearing in one of the earliest cookbooks ever discovered! This was a 2000-year-old text by a Roman named Apicius.
• Olive oil has traditionally been used as fuel and was even used to light the earliest Olympic torch.
• The olive flower is white and only flowers after four years.
• Olive trees can live for more than 1,500 years and grow to a maximum of 50 feet tall.
• It was the Phoenicians who first brought the olive tree to Spain, but the Ancient Romans are credited with establishing vast farms of olives, often owned by absentee landlords who lived back in Rome.
• The olive garnish is what makes the Martini Cocktail, shaken or stirred!
• When the tradition of tapas was born, the first and simplest tapas was a slice of bread with olives.
• For thousands of years the olive branch has been used as a sign of peace and goodwill.
• Olive trees are harvested for the first time after 15 years.
• The average life of an olive tree is between 300 and 600 years.