Open and check? I'd be more wary if they weren't refrigerated. Curing olives is a means of preserving, so I'd think a year old is no big deal.

The flavor might've gone off tho, even if they won't make anybody ill.

I agree with Carol. Sealed and in the fridge should be okay. However, I wasn’t sure so this came up in a quick check.

https://www.doesitgobad.com/do-olives-go-bad/

Thank you for the article, chloebud. From what I read I have a lot of olives to toss. I used to eat lots of them, but have tapered-off in the last year.

The most salient line in the does it go bad article is near the end: ”If the olives smell and look perfectly fine, time for the last check: taste.” I don't like olives, so have had lingering olive bar olives, as well as ones from cans and jars. They decline in quality long before they rot. If they get soft or funky, you don't want to eat them even if they perfectly safe. :)

Don’t oil-cured olives have a lot of salt? Olives, olive oil and salt. In jar/container in fridge.

What would go ”bad?”

What about making a yummy cured olive, salt and EVOO Focaccia? Ofv haand, I’d say that will help insure against any whatever-bad-spores or cooties.

I made it once, from scratch as soon as I returned from Italy one year. I think I might have made up my recipe on the fly after looking at a NYT magazine. Darn, it was so delicious.

Here is a blogger’s recipe and storyboard. Oh, and fresh rosemary leaves are nice.

https://foodslice.blogspot.com/2011/07/black-olive-and-rosemary-focaccia.html?m=1

PS ^^^ I like to make deep dimples in the crust before baking to hold the EVOO. Use a lot. When it come from the oven an cools a bit, add more.

After this thread I checked on my olive supply. Several cans and jars got tossed because of their age - 2011. I had 4 cans of very nice olives. I checked online to see when I bought them - Dec. 2020. OK. I opened one of the cans and they were still good but rather soft and tasteless. Rats! I will check each can and hope.

Maybe I can use them for cooking? I don't do that much, but I suppose I can start using them this way.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Actually the specific birthday request by my nephew was for what he calls my ’salty, greasy bread with olives’ ie focaccia. The olives were fine. Whew!

I also made one with the last few tomatoes from @sleevendog‘s miniature tomato seedlings. Thanks again!

In return my nephew made his delicious smoked salmon for my mom and myself. We had a small group family birthday celebration.

Here is my cutie pie nephew way way before his 29th birthday. His birthday is right after his great grandfather’s who he is named after... I have been thinking about how they were both were born at the end of (different) centuries. During periods of great change.

He looks like an artist ,,,