Focus on Figs

I'm very fond of figs. Until I came to New Zealand, I had known only the dried version. Wonderfully sweet and with those irresistible crunchies that come from the many single-seeded fruits that develop from flowers inside the structure of the fig. What an amazing plant it is.  

I may have told this story at some point in the past, but I intend to tell it again, because it's a good one in my opinion, and brings me pleasure to remember it.

Allie first told me about the figs here. She told me about a large tree that grew along a walkway that she took from the train station in Ranui to her work. I found it one day, but the fruits where not ripe at the time. And they were way up in the air besides, I couldn't see them well. It was a very large tree. 

But I was excited. I wanted to see what a fresh fig looked like and of course, tasted like.   

I'll always remember an episode of Masterpiece Theater entitled, I, Claudius, in which fresh figs played a role. In one episode, Livia, wife of the Emperor Augustus, fatally poisoned him.  

He had become so afraid that someone would poison his food that he vowed not to eat anything but fresh figs that he had picked himself from the trees in their garden. Livia stole out each night and painted the ripest figs hanging on the trees with poison and chuckled the next morning as her husband gathered his undoing. He didn't last long. (Modern historians now doubt that story.) 

This is a picture I took of some figs I picked from a friend's tree. (not completely ripe) It was planted right next to his fence and several of its branches hung over the sidewalk I would often use.  I decided the first time I saw them and picked a few, that I wanted to get to know the guy who owned the tree.  

The next time I passed his yard, I saw that he was working on his boat, which stood in his driveway.  I walked in, introduced myself, and said that I couldn't help but notice his tree.  I asked, "Is that a fig tree?"  I told him that I had never seen one growing before, having lived all my life in the snowy north country of Michigan. 

He assured me that it was indeed a fig and he went on to tell me all about them.  Well, we became friends. He invited me a couple of times to sit and have a drink with him as I walked past his place and once gave me a bag of figs to take home. 

One day, sometime later, there was a sale sign in his yard. He and his wife had bought a caravan (motor home), planned to travel permanently, and were selling their place. I went in to say good-bye. As a going away gift, he took me out to his tree, broke off a four foot length of branch, and said to stick it in the ground.  

"Stick it in the ground," I said, "You mean it would actually grow?"  He assured me that it would, that it was how he got his tree in the first place. 

Well, I had serious doubts about it but did so and it did grow, and become the tree from which I harvested hundreds of figs over the years.  

Now that we live at Waitakere Gardens, I get my figs when the gardeners collect them from our own trees and put them out on the carts in the Atrium on Monday, Thursday and Saturday mornings.  

I like to stew them in a sugar syrup for about half and hour and then refrigerate them for a few days before eating. While cooking the batch you see below, Jeanne suggested that I add some lemon  juice, which I did, and am glad I did so.  It adds a little tang without disguising the flavor of the figs.    

As I write this, our fig season is over for the year.  We've enjoyed them and look forward to next year.  

I hope that if you haven't already, you'll someday get a chance to try a fresh fig. I've found that the ones sold in fancy markets for about $2+ each are the best ones. Huge, soft, moist and sweet. Those that come from trees around town are okay, but nothing like the farmed varieties. That's why I like to stew them. It elevates them.   

The last picture shows some tiny, hot peppers and bay leaves which we are allowing to dry. The peppers are from our gardens, but someone brought lots of bay tree branches in from outside the village and put them on the 'free' table in the mail room. I took a few and snipped each leaf free, enjoying the smell. They're very aromatic.  -djf