About
Manzanilla is the green olive most Spanish kitchens keep within reach, and Bernal has been packing them for over a century. These have the stone out and nothing in the tin but brine. Firm rather than soft, clean and salty, with a faint almond note behind.
Bernal works out of Callosa de Segura in Alicante, in the Valencian Community. The family has run olives and pickles through the same plant for four generations. The building covers more than twenty thousand square metres and turns out Manzanilla, Gordal, Hojiblanca and Kalamata, whole, stoned or stuffed.
This is the plain one. Manzanilla olives are cured in brine to keep the flesh firm and smooth, then stoned. The tin holds olives, water, salt, lactic acid and citric acid, which is the whole list.
The house started in 1900 and the fourth generation of the family runs it now. Open the tin cold and put it on the board with cured meat and cheese, or chop them through a rice salad. They will also hold their own in a martini.
Producer note
Aceitunas Bernal is a family olive and pickle maker at Callosa de Segura in Alicante, founded in 1900 and now in its fourth generation. The range runs from small tins to catering sizes for restaurants.
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