I've heard Uncle George's - inspired by a hamburger with an olive on it - story a number of times. My take has always been the same;

If your original concept art looks like this;

...and you like it enough to proceed to the level of building this;

...then I'm calling Bullshit on the hamburger\olive story. George is a pathological liar where Star Wars history is concerned. He probably thought it sounded like a funny or clever anecdote after he saw the redesign and then decided to run with it.