What is an Olive?
Olives, like peaches and plums, are botanically classified as a drupe, a fruit containing a hard pit that has one or more seeds on the inside. Other common drupes include cherries, mangos, and even coconuts.
Olive trees do best in warm, dry climates, and thrive particularly well in the Mediterranean basin: southern Europe, Turkey, and North Africa. The tree's olives and resulting oil were good for eating at least a thousand years ago, and still carry the same benefits today. After olives are picked at certain stages of development (green or black), they're pickled, cured, or even dried before consumption.