Few dishes are as quintessentially Provençal as tapenade. The mere sight of the olive spread always brings me back to summers in my grandparents yard with the whole family, standing around a small table in the sun for aperitif, speaking over each other and tapenade being spread liberally on small pieces of baguette.
The word Tapenade comes from the Provençal word for caper, Tapeno. Like the olive tree, capers were brought by the Phocaean’s to Marseille in the sixth century B.C., both have remained staples in the Provençal diet since. Many varieties of tapenade exist including black, green, tomato, garlic, artichoke and others, but the core ingredients always remain the same: olives, anchovies, olive oil and capers.
Ingredients:
- 200G Pitted Kalamata or other black olives
- 3 Tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
- 2 Cloves of garlic
- 4 Anchovies
- 8 Capers
- Bread for serving
- Roughly mince garlic then add olives, garlic, anchovies and capers to food processor and pulse.
- Slowly add olive oil to mixture then serve on bread, crackers, meat or vegetable dishes for a Provençal touch.