We accept the fact that not everyone likes olives. While we might not really understand it, we're okay with it. This odd truth just means that there are more olives around for the rest of us. What we can't understand is why anyone would take a fruit as great as the olive -- which by the way, supplies us with our favorite oil -- turn it the consistency of a tire by soaking it with lye, can it, and then sell it as a food product.
Canned olives are the lowest kind of olive -- if we can even still call them that. Yet for some reason they're an atrocity that most people just accept, ruining perfectly good meals with them. But we can no longer idly stand by without at least speaking our minds about the vileness that is the canned olive. We hate canned olives, and here's why:
They start off with so much promise.
Olives have such a nice beginning. They grow on these majestic trees that always seem to be draped in the most beautiful sunlight, illuminating them just so. When you see olives like this, it's hard to imagine that they can ever be anything but delicious.
Photo credit: Flickr/ badobaz
Some olives get a chance to become great.
Stuffed with all kinds of goodness and cured just right, just look at how amazing all those olives look. We want to eat each and every last one of them. All olives should taste like this.
Photo credit: Flickr/ litterae2
And then, some are canned.
The not-so-lucky olives get picked prematurely (so cruel!), are soaked in lye to make them edible (disgusting!), and they turn into this rubbery mess. These are an abomination to all things olive. In our opinion, they shouldn't even be allowed to carry the olive name. Why are they so unlucky?
Photo credit: Flickr/ Sunchild57
They ruin perfectly good pizzas.
Photo credit: Flickr/ joebeone
They destroy English muffins.
Not even English muffin pizzas stand a chance against these sad excuses for olives. Just look at how scary canned olives make these pizzas look.
Photo credit: Flickr/ mooshee85
They manage to make cute kids look creepy.
Not many things can do this; it's a crime against humanity.
Photo credit: Flickr/ Kasandra16
They even make perfectly sane ladies do weird naked things.
How are they legal?
Photo credit: Flickr/ elisabethspace
They look like eyes.
Any food product that can easily stand in for eyes is suspect. Why would anyone want to eat something that looks like a body part?
Photo credit: Flickr/ lozierk
The only place canned olives belong is in nasty casseroles and on top of questionable dips.
Let's leave them there and forget they even exist. Please.
Photo credit: Flickr/ AwFreakOut
Check out these olive recipes made with REAL OLIVES.