19770000 Olives

My parents and I liked olives. They planted an olive tree in the back yard. When it was mature enough to bear fruit, I tried one directly off the tree. That was a face-scrunching YUCK moment rivaled only by a rotten pistachio, to that point in my life. I complained to Mom. She proceeded to show me how to cure the olives, soaking them in cycles of lye and brine over a couple of weeks—fascinating! I wondered how the process was discovered. Was there a tree at the edge of a sea, and someone had a beach fire, and olives dropped into the ashes, then the waves lapped over the ashes making lye? Then weeks later someone else happened to dredge a lump out the sand and ashes and decided to eat it? Why? Why would you do that?