# How do pimentos get inside the olive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 3, 2003, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-pimentos-get-inside-the-olive/216804 "2003-12-03T22:26:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Isabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b5a626/32.png) [@Isabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isabelle)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-pimentos-get-inside-the-olive/216804/1 "2003-12-03T22:26:04Z")
That little red pimento fits snuggly in the olive. It has a perfect cross cut on the outside of the olive. How does it get inside? It seems if there were a machine doing it - - how could they perfectly cut each olive (this would be very time consuming)? I know they don’t do it by hand.:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Indefatigable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9d8465/32.png) [@Indefatigable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indefatigable)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-pimentos-get-inside-the-olive/216804/2 "2003-12-03T22:31:59Z")
If the olives are sorted by size before they have their pits removed and pimentoes put in, I don’t see why a machine couldn’t do it. Machines do some pretty precise assembly-line work. ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-pimentos-get-inside-the-olive/216804/3 "2003-12-03T22:34:52Z")
[Olive Stuffer](http://www.oliveexpress.net/). I assume large companies have an industrial version of the same - probably mechanical. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-pimentos-get-inside-the-olive/216804/4 "2003-12-03T23:07:47Z")
The pimento is still alive when it crawls into the olive by itself; the brine-pickling process kills it and dissolves most of the legs and eyes. Actually, the olice is stoned by pressing a sharpened tube against one end and a rod (the is X-shaped in cross section) against the other - this neatly removes the stone, the stuffing process is also automated. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-pimentos-get-inside-the-olive/216804/5 "2003-12-03T23:11:38Z")
I’ve been thinking about this myself. The olive stuffer doesn’t seem to cut it. The fold of the pimento is facing outwards. So that means it was folded before insertion (geez, talk about opportunities for innuendos). So somehow, there is a machine that folds and inserts. Or it’s child labor in a thirld world country. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-pimentos-get-inside-the-olive/216804/6 "2003-12-03T23:42:58Z")
from [here](http://www.oliveoilsource.com/olivenews4-9.htm) > [@](#): > > The machines are designed for a certain size of olive and can pit only or pit and stuff simultaneously. A plug the diameter of the pit is cut in one end as the pit is pushed out by an x shaped punch on the other end. The stuffing is usually made in large sheets of a gelatin like material which is cut in strips and then fed into the machine in rolls. Even more sophisticated machines will cut the plug of olive off the pit and re-insert it after the olive is stuffed, capping the olive so the contents can’t spill out. > … > Many smaller California growers who can’t justify these > machines still use hand labor. Hand stuffing is also still the norm for harder fillings which can’t be produced in sheets and ribbons, such as nut meats. ---
**Author:** ![Francesca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@Francesca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francesca)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2003, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-pimentos-get-inside-the-olive/216804/7 "2003-12-04T00:16:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mangetout \* > \*\*The pimento is still alive when it crawls into the olive by itself; the brine-pickling process kills it and dissolves most of the legs and eyes. \*\* Ha! If I had a sig line, I would use this. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2003, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-pimentos-get-inside-the-olive/216804/8 "2003-12-04T01:15:18Z")
[Excerpt from Los Olividados:](http://timothyplatypus.tripod.com/FaS/anotherhat_oliv.html) > [@](#): > > The trumpet sounds a third and last time, for the tercio del muerte, the moment of truth. The olivador bows again to the Presidente, saying to him, “I dedicate to you this olive”. He then places it on his knee; murmuring a prayer to St. James of Compostela, he takes the pica, raises it high above his head. All is hushed. And then, in one sudden movement, he brings it jabbing down into the heart of the olive. And a great cry goes up of “Olé!” - he has made an 'ole. > But before the gutted olive can fall to the sand it is caught by the matador on his mat, dragged out of the arena, and handed over to the estufadores, who are of two types: the estufadores pimentos, and the estufadores anchovas. Their dread work done, it is distributed among the poor ---
**Author:** ![Demstr8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Demstr8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demstr8)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-pimentos-get-inside-the-olive/216804/9 "2014-11-24T14:04:24Z")
[http://lookpic.com/O/i2/40/fq334NQ.png](http://lookpic.com/O/i2/40/fq334NQ.png) [http://lookpic.com/O/i2/966/RCA6YM4K.png](http://lookpic.com/O/i2/966/RCA6YM4K.png) :dubious: I think That the original use of the cherry pepper (piemento pepper) cut and inserted was a nicer option and is still done today. Although some is turned into a geletin and formed into sheets to be cut folded and stuffed into the olives. The cheapest olives out there use the generic geletin stuff that was mentioned above. made the mistake of buying one time … very gross even the olives were nasty. So hopefully if you are buying Olives with pimento you get the real ones or even the one formed out of the real peimento peppers like fruit roll up sheets and cut. I know Im not going to make that error again. bleh :dubious::smack: ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-pimentos-get-inside-the-olive/216804/10 "2014-11-24T14:48:50Z")
William Poundstone addresses this at considerable length in the first of his **Big Secrets** books. For premium olives, someone actually cuts out the olive pits and inserts a folded strip of pimiento by hand. For the lower-class stuff, they use a sort of pimiento pasta squirted into the cavity left by the depitting. Poundstone bought and compared several containers of stuffed olives and compared the results. > **[Big Secrets: Poundstone, William: 9780688048303: Amazon.com: Books](https://www.amazon.com/Big-Secrets-William-Poundstone/dp/0688048307)** > > Big Secrets \[Poundstone, William\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Big Secrets