Figs, glorious figs

Figs, glorious figs,

I'm anxious to try them. 

My tree's full of these beauties,

I don't have to buy them. 

I've now tried them so many ways,

Fried, chilied, or stewed.

Oh, figs, magical figs, wonderful figs,

marvelous food!  

My apologies for adapting, Food, Glorious Food, from Oliver, to my own devices, but the exuberance of the song in the musical matches my own feelings for this wonderful treat. That song popped into my head as I picked a bowl of them the other day and I couldn't rest, as I worked up this post, until I had tried my hand (well, my brain) at a little parody.  

I told you earlier this summer that my fig tree was going to be loaded. Well it is, but our summer turned out so dry that the fruit did not do as well as I had hoped it would. I got some ripe ones, but most stayed smaller and just seemed to be marking time on the tree as our days without rain went on and on. Lately, we have have some rain and the tree has responded by swelling some towards full size.  Good thing. Since they're not fully ripe though, I determined that I would stew them in a sugar syrup. Then, when I realized that we were unlikely to eat as many as I had stewed, I decided to cut each in half and dry them. 

That is now our favorite way of eating them. There is nothing like figs fresh off the tree, but stewing and drying them concentrates their sweetness and flavor. And they are so tender. Much better than the dried ones in the stores.  

 Most are stayng small and many have some defect on their skins. 

A serated steak knive taped to a bamboo pole allows me to harvest those from higher in the tree. 

Becoming yellowish (riper)

Nicely plump 
Notice how the fig is bulging toward the side that is down.  A sure sign of ripeness, it's getting soft sides.  

 The first step in stewing them is a 5-minute boil in plain water. You'll note that I trimmed some of the skins.

The next step is to boil them in 1:1 sugar syrup, also for 5 minutes and them let them sit in it until they cool. 

Then, syrup and figs go into a container in the fridge where they'll spend 2-3 days. 

 Finally, cut them in half, lay them out, and dry in a very low oven until they seem right. 

 The three scientific states of matter are gasous, liquid, solid.

These are my three states of figs.

I tried a couple of other ways to eat the small ones...

Boiled in salt water, sliced and fried with salt and pepper.  Edible, but ....

Boiled in salt water, sliced and added to chili. Edible, but...

I was hoping to discover that I could make figs serve some other function. I wanted them to take the place of a vegetable, I guess.  I don't think, based on my two attempts, that they're meant to do that. 

I've done a little more experimenting and found that even the very young, hard figs can be processed into stewed and dried quite successfully. I have to boil them longer in both the plain water and the syrup and then slice them open when they go into the fridge so they absorb the syrup more completely.  And leave them in the syrup longer.  

I'm working on another batch of figs today.  My biggest yet, 47 of them. They will be cooked in syrup that has some coconut sugar added to it. BTW, do you see the lighter colored bit at about 7 o'clock on the lower block? That's a piece of coconut.  I Love it.  

(These blocks of sugar are the same shape as the Koko Samoa I showed you some time ago. Smaller, but the same shape. I'll bet these are a home business product too. 
I could have bought loose coconut sugar that comes in factory produced bags, but I prefer this kind that is closer to its roots. That's why I value that piece of coconut in the blocks. It proves that it's real. )

In the earlier post I mentioned above, I told you how, in my younger days, I had always longed to try fresh figs, especially after seeing them being grown and eaten on Masterpiece Theater's T.V. series, I Claudius.  Well, last night as I brought up Youtube and re-watched Augustus praising them, Livia considering her plan for his trees, and Julia eating them, one after another, I ate a couple of my own. How about that, huh? I was delighted. 

Come on, sing along with me...You know the tune....

  Figs, glorious figs,

I'm anxious to try them. 

My tree's full of these beauties,

I don't have to buy them. 

I've now tried them so many ways,

Fried, chilied or stewed.

Oh, figs, magical figs, wonderful figs,

marvelous food!  

( I couldn't resist     -djf)