Traditionally, olives of this variety are usually harvested fully ripe, green fruits are rarely on sale. The color, dark and heterogeneous, with lighter or darker sides, slightly resembles the color of an unripe eggplant. It is almost impossible to remove the stone from the olive because of the shape of the fruit and its softness. If you still want to add pitted olives to any dish, then you will have to choose them manually. It's not difficult - in a good, ripe olive, the flesh is easily separated from the bone, but because of the softness of the olive, it will fall apart into two halves. A delicious tapenade is made from Kalamata – a dish of Provencal cuisine in the form of thick pasta, as well as puttanesca pasta sauce and olive-rosemary bread. Kalamata olives are rich in useful oils, potassium, calcium, manganese, vitamins E, A, C. Their inclusion in the diet will positively affect the work of the digestive organs and liver. Olives increase appetite, stimulate the secretion of bile, promote brain function. Olives and oil are recommended for the prevention of migraines and cardiovascular diseases. The consumption of canned kalamata olives should be controlled because they contain a large amount of salt. Their overeating will cause unwanted fluid retention in the body. This is one of the most ancient agro-cultures known to mankind. The first mention of olives (not only of this variety) dates back to the pre-Christian era. And olives themselves are mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments. From this point of view, olives are one of the few products immortalized in inspired religious books. In Greece, olives have always been considered both the food of the commoners and the delicacies of the patricians. To this day, Kalamata olives are harvested only by hand without the use of machinery. An interesting fact is that 90% of the olive harvest in the world goes to the production of olive oil, the remaining 10% are preserved, only those that are considered table olives and are of the best quality. Kalamata olives are mainly cultivated in the southwest of the Peloponnese in the regions of Messinia (the capital of the region is the city of Kalamata), Laconia and Agrinio. The European Union has assigned Kalamata olives the P.D.O. (Protected Designation of Origin) "Protected Designation of Origin" label. For the consumer, such labeling is a guarantee of high quality. It is awarded only to those products whose origin, components and production method are well known.