Pickles, Preserves & Relishes

Olive Schiacciate (Cracked Green Olives) / Gaduna – 2005
​​​Recipe by Ron Wozny, inspired by Lucia Privetera Greco

INGREDIENTS
  • 1 pound  green olives with pits
  • ¼ cup  wine vinegar -- or red vinegar
  • ¼ cup  olive oil
  • ¼ cup  fresh mint leaves -- or 1/2 Tbs. dried
  • 1 cup celery stalks -- sliced 1/2" thick -  or gaduna (wild burdock) stalks, parboiled
  • 2 cloves  garlic -- sliced
  • 1 teaspoon  oregano
  • ½ small  red onion, sliced in thin rings -- optional

PREPARATION
Wash olives in cold water; towel dry. Crack olives (hitting with smooth end of meat mallet) and place in bowl. Wash and cut celery in small pieces. Mix all ingredients together, cover. Marinate for 2-3 days. Will keep for several weeks in refrigerator. Adjust oil and vinegar measurements to your own preference, as well as other ingredients.

Nana liked to use just regular vinegar and cooking oil (Mazola issa da best). She also liked to parboil the gaduna until tender. You can parboil celery, if you're using that.  Nana didn't use onions, and since she parboiled the gaduna, she would just serve it the same day.
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NOTES : If you ever gave Nana a ride anywhere in the summertime, odds were very good that you would find yourself traipsing around empty lots and fields, looking for "gaduna." It's like a wild rhubarb ... and Nana could spot it growing a mile away. She even had Ron try to transplant some out at the Greco Cabin, so she would have her own private supply, but we weren't successful. She would pickle it with olives and mint, and serve it as a relish. If you remember what it looks like, substitute the gaduna for the celery in this recipe, which was derived from the "Taste of Italy" cookbook from the American-Italian Heritage Society in Omaha. Just blanch it a bit before you make the recipe.

After trying to figure out what these plants are, we were finally able to identify them as burdock, which grows wild all over the country.