Italy: where olives are ginormous

They’re the giants of the olive world  – 30-gram freaks that, according to farm co-op manager Alice Jaschke-Ferreri, are sometimes mistaken for plums. “You see something that big and nobody can believe it’s an olive,” says Jaschke-Ferreri, who’s in charge of quality control at the Bella di Cerignola co-operative in Italy’s southern Puglia region. By a quirk of geography, the flat plain on which the co-op sits produces humongous table olives — the biggest in the world, says Jaschke-Ferreri.