Olive Stoner

"Vorsprung durch tapenade", the olive stoner's functional efficiency is a result of unrelenting German engineering design

ESSENTIAL USER NOTES

One of the more specialised of kitchen utensils, the olive stoner, as its name suggests, is a device dedicated to the removal of stones from olives. There really isn't any other kitchen utensil that does this so well, neither does the olive stoner do any other culinary function better.

Similar in construction to a Transylvanian hole-punch, and probably sharing a common ancestor with the garlic_crusher, the olive stoner includes a hollowed-out cup-like receptacle in which olives are loaded and a solid metal ram that punches the stones out by way of ruthless scissor-like action. The gratuitous efficiency of its operation and repressed brutality seen in its minimalist, purposeful construction give away the Teutonic origins of the modern olive stoner. Originally designed in 1898 at the Berliner Olivenbaumer Cöcktailgarnierung und Höchklässigenibbelungen Entfernensforchungsinstitut (The Berlin Research Institute for Cöcktail Garnishes and Related Posh Nibbles) and carved by Mercedes-Benz engineers from solid titanium blocks, the earliest olive stoners shocked Meditterranean nations at the 1901 World Cocktail Accessory Fair as much by their efficiency at ridding olives of their stones as by the clouds of fumes they generated. Use of these early BOCHE devices was banned under a special treaty enacted by the League of Nations, but by 1936, German engineers had come up with a new, smaller and hand held stoning device that was no longer reliant on diesel fuel, and tested it in action during the Spanish Civil War. Mussolini was so impressed by this new utensil that he requested a supply from his German allies as a top priority above ammunition, tanks, aircraft, Marlene Dietrich records and lederhosen.

The modern olive stoner has changed very little from its wartime predecessor. But despite its functionality of design, this utensil has found particular practical use in the modern kitchen. No utensil is more cuited for use as a culinary hole-making tool, essential in the preparation of flat ingredients such as bread, bacon, pasta and fish for lacing, or for punching small holes in fruit when preparing edlible bracelets and necklaces.

As well as removing olive stones, the olive stoner can be used as an effective hole punch for the preparation of laced pasta dishes

Use this utensil to make Chocolate Olive Cheesecake With Fig and Chocolate Coulis, if the olives have not already had their stones removed