Volume II · Scene 08 of 30
The drops were already there
Oil forms inside the olive
As the olive grows, oil forms in its flesh.
The flesh is the part around the stone.
At the olive mill, we will learn to separate the oil.
@ A.D.O.S. INTERNATIONALThe story
Neri shows an enlarged view of the flesh. Its tiny parts are drawn like little rooms. Some contain oil. ‘Crushing breaks these structures and releases little drops,’ the woman in charge explains.
Rumo repeats it in his own words. ‘The oil was already in the fruit. It is not made by the machine’s noise.’ Leo laughs and looks more closely at the panel.
Sami draws tiny drops, water and fragments still close together. Ada remembers the sun, the leaves and the time spent in the olive grove. The machine works on what the plant has prepared. Curiosone returns to the example on the quantities page. ‘If we process one hundred kilos of olives and obtain fifteen kilos of oil, the yield is fifteen per cent.’ Sami looks at the two amounts. ‘Does the rest disappear?’ ‘No. Water and other parts remain. Some oil may remain in the residues too. The result changes from one processing run to another.’ In the notebook, the first journey and the second meet inside a little olive. Rumo looks at a hand squeezing an olive in the notebook. ‘What is missing?’ asks Curiosone.
‘The water, the other parts and the separation,’ Sami replies. ‘That picture does not show all the work.’
Let’s talk about it
Is the oil created by the olive mill’s machine?
One possible answer
No. It is already in the fruit. Processing helps release it and separate it from the other parts. The oil obtained weighs only part of the weight of the processed olives. The example 100 kg → 15 kg shows a yield of 15%, which can vary.
A little activity
Our notebook — Find a drop in the enlarged diagram. Then point to the whole olive to remember that the picture is not actual size. Tell an adult, in your own words, about the journey: olive, paste, oil, water and pomace, the fruit material left after separating the oil. Why does the whole weight not become oil? Follow the picture. Do not try squeezing olives.