North California: Time to celebrate olives
In the northern Sacramento Valley sits Corning, self-styled Olive City, whose annual festival celebrates more than a century of olive growing. Its history is really the history of a distinctly American olive: the large, mild, ripe black table olive in a can.
California olives arrived with the Spanish missions, whose Mission variety was first grown for oil. But the northern Sacramento Valley around Corning found its real vocation in table fruit. From the 1890s, growers planted the town’s hills and flats, and over the following century Corning became a byword for canned ripe black olives — the mild, uniform, pitted kind that generations of Americans have known from pizzas and relish trays. The town leans into it proudly, festival and all.
The very American ripe black olive
The Corning specialty is the California ripe olive: a green olive picked firm, then cured and darkened by air-oxidation with a touch of iron to fix the black colour, before being canned. The result is deliberately mild — soft, uniform, barely bitter, the opposite of a sharp brine-cured Mediterranean olive. Purists sniff at it, but it is its own honest product with a real place in American cooking, and it is what built Corning. Judge it for what it is, not against a Kalamata.
From oil to table, and the varieties that did it
Early growers tried the Mission olive for oil, but the industry pivoted to table fruit and to varieties that suited it — the Spanish Manzanillo above all, plus Sevillano for the big cocktail olives, with Mission and others in support. These are large, fleshy, handsome olives bred for the can and the jar rather than the press. It is a reminder that a region’s fortune often turns on matching the right cultivar to the right product, not just on climate.
Why a town throws an olive festival
Corning’s festival, like the olive fairs of the Mediterranean, is a harvest celebration and a piece of civic identity — a small town honouring the crop that put it on the map. These events matter beyond the bunting: they keep growing knowledge alive, draw visitors to a rural economy, and remind people that olives are farmed, seasonal and local to somewhere, not just a jar on a shelf. That thread runs from Provence to the Sacramento Valley.
| Town | Corning, northern Sacramento Valley |
|---|---|
| First plantings | 1890s |
| Specialty | California ripe (canned black) table olives |
| Key varieties | Manzanillo, Sevillano, Mission |
| Cure | Air-oxidation, then canned — mild & uniform |
| Harvest | September–November |
Knowing your California olives
- The canned ripe black olive is mild by design — enjoy it as its own thing, not a brined Mediterranean fruit.
- Manzanillo and Sevillano are the big table varieties behind it.
- For sharper flavour, seek California brine-cured or oil-cured olives instead.
- A regional olive festival is a good place to taste the range and meet growers.
California olives: common questions
Why is Corning called the Olive City?
Because olive growing has anchored the northern Sacramento Valley town since the 1890s, and it became a major centre for California ripe table olives — celebrated each year at its olive festival.
What is a California ripe black olive?
A green olive cured by air-oxidation (with a little iron to fix the colour) and canned. It is mild, soft and uniform rather than sharply brine-cured.
Which varieties does California use for table olives?
Mainly the Spanish Manzanillo, plus Sevillano for large cocktail olives and Mission, all big, fleshy fruit suited to canning and jarring.
Are canned black olives lower quality?
They are simply a different, milder product with their own place in American cooking. For sharper flavour, choose brine-cured or oil-cured olives instead.
Did California start with table olives or oil?
Oil, from the mission-era Mission variety. The Sacramento Valley later pivoted to table fruit and the varieties that suited canning.
Do not judge the California ripe olive against a Kalamata — it is a different animal on purpose. Picked firm, darkened by air rather than long brining, and canned mild and uniform, it is an honest American product that built a whole town, Corning. If you want sharpness, buy California brine-cured or oil-cured fruit instead; if you want that soft, familiar pizza olive, the ripe black is the real thing done right. And go to a local olive festival at least once — it is where you taste the range and remember olives are farmed, not manufactured.
Drawn from California table-olive history and variety records; dates stated as commonly documented.