FICUS CARICA
THE FIG is native to the Eastern Mediter-ranean region, where its cultivation has been traced back 4,500 years, almost to the dawn of agriculture. Figs are so rich and delicious, and they dry so well and keep without refrigeration for such long periods that those first farmers would have been crazy not to plant a fig in their dooryard, just as so many who live in the Mediterranean climates around the world do today.
While my own Black Mission fig tree isn’t exactly in my dooryard (it’s down in the orchard next to the vegetable garden), I’m happy to have it here. Figs came over with the Spanish explorers in the mid-16th century. The Black Mission variety arrived in California in 1769 when Franciscans established the first mission at San Diego. Originally, this fig grew on the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain.
THE ORGANIC FACTOR
While California figs aren’t a heavily sprayed crop, nevertheless
agricultural chemicals are used annually by conventional farmers, including methyl bromide soil fumigant, glyphosate (Roundup) herbicide, and fungicides. Large scale fig producers may spray ethephon growth regulator on the crop to speed up ripening if rain threatens or it’s known that an insect will shortly make its appearance, but this doesn’t help the fruit’s flavor profile. The best choice is to look for organic figs. They are not hard to find. True Foods Market, an online store, sells dried Calimyrna and Black Mission figs. The San Joaquin Valley Fig Growers’ Cooperative includes organic figs in its product line, figs that find their way into several retail brand names you’ll find by searching online for “organic figs.” These have all been certified
organic.
NUTRITION
Dried figs may reach 50 percent sugar, and they are a good source of dietary fiber, calcium, potassium, and the B vitamins of thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin. While fresh figs have 15 milligrams of vitamin C per 100 grams of fruit, the dried figs have none. Both fresh and dried figs have a mild laxative action.
TYPES
Figs can be blackish purple, green, brownish-bronze, violet, or yellow. However, unlike grapes, where the flavor is concentrated in the skins, fig skin is relatively tasteless and isn’t an indicator of their flavor. It’s the pulp inside that contributes the taste. The flavor of fresh, tree-ripened figs is sweet, rich, and fruity—very different from the concentrated caramel-nuttiness that dried figs acquire.
SEASONALITY
Most kinds of fig trees produce two crops a year—in the early summer and in the late summer or early fall. The first crop, called the breba crop, grows on older branches that developed over the course of the past year, and they are usually juicy and up to twice as large as the second, main crop, which appears in the late summer and fall and develops on the current year’s growth of branches. The breba crop, while larger, is usually not as highly flavored as the second crop—the extra size means it is more diluted with abundant water; the smaller second-crop figs have more concentrated flavor.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
Only those who have spent time in regions where fig trees grow know the luscious texture and flavor of a fresh tree ripened fig. That’s because tree-ripened figs are supremely perishable as soon as they are picked. In fact, if such a fig is bruised, it will become unmarketable within minutes, as the bruised area begins to break down and disintegrate. Most fresh figs that go the wholesale-retail route are picked unripe, and while they may become a little sweeter within a few days, they never reach their tree-ripened potential. Some may even be picked when the tree’s milky latex is evident at the stem end of the fruit—this latex is irritating to the skin and destructive of proteins in the mucus linings of the mouth and should never be eaten.
Luckily, figs dry very easily, and most dried figs are picked tree-ripe, and so something of that appealing fresh flavor appears in the dried fig. With dried figs, look for Black Mission and Calimyrnas first. ....read more
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