The Fig, the World's most Luscious fruit is really a flower inverted into itself. If you look at the eye of the fig (the opening on the flat blossom end) you will see a little teardrop of syrup. Figs and prosciutto, is a classic Italian pairing.

The San Joaquin Valley in mid California is "Fig Heaven", and is responsible for all the the relatively small commercial domestic crop, but is third in world wide production behind Greece and Turkey.

Naples Daily News
By Joan Cirillo
AP Weekly Features
July 28, 2004

Portland,Ore. When cookbook author and columnist Marie Simmons moved from New York to California, she felt as if she had gone to fig heaven.

"It was unbelievable. I'd never seen so many figs," she recalled about the summer day she visited the farmers' market near her San Francisco Bay-area home in Richmond.

Fruit farmer Rocky Palomino responded to her enthusiasm by showing her different fig varieties and how to select the best fruit. "My knees went weak," she said, remembering the moment he delicately lifted a perfectly ripe fig, the fruit that is really a flower inverted into itself. "He showed me the eye of the fig (the opening on the flat blossom end) with the little teardrop of syrup."

That day, Simmons had a fig epiphany. Overcome by excitement, she bought too many figs.

"All I really knew was prosciutto and figs," she said, referring to the classic Italian pairing. So she began using the plump purple-black, yellow and green varieties of figs in different ways, skewering them through sprigs of rosemary for grilling or tossing them into risotto.

Her kitchen adventures six years ago turned out to be the "twinkle," as Simmons puts it, for her 18th cookbook, "Fig Heaven" (Morrow, 2004, $19.95). In the 166-page book, the award-winning author shares her insights into using both fresh and dried figs, along with 70 recipes for what she calls "the world's most luscious fruit."

Her book comes at a time when the fresh fig is increasing in popularity. "The fresh fig industry has seen consumer consumption jump 60 percent over the last four years," said Richard Matoian of the California Fig Advisory Board. Increased use by chefs in restaurants and demand from specialty food markets is driving the growth, he said, adding that fresh figs can cost up to $7.99 a pound — although at the height of the season they cost much less.

The domestic crop, commercially all produced by California growers, is relatively small and is concentrated in the San Joaquin Valley. Since figs are so perishable, most of the world's fig crop is dried whole. (Figs have the highest sugar content of any fruit and are the only fruit that can be ripened and then partially dried on the tree.) Current interest is prompting California growers to convert some of their dry crop to fresh, said Matoian. The state ranks third in worldwide fig production, slightly behind Greece with Turkey as the leader.

Of four varieties available fresh in the United States, the purple-black skinned Black Mission fig is the most popular because it ships easily and is so flavorful. Other varieties, in order of production, are the purple-brown skinned Brown Turkey; the yellow skinned and slightly flattened Calimyrna, popular as a dried fruit; and the pale green Kadota fig, excellent for canning and preserving. (Brown Turkey is the only variety that is not also dried.)

The variety of uses for this ancient fruit, prized by the Greeks and Romans for its sweetness, nutrition and medicinal value, fascinated Simmons. She said she was struck by the antiquity of fig culture, with references dating from 3,000 B.C. and literary and other records in writing throughout history.

Simmons begins her book with selections from such history and lore, which includes the fig's association with fertility, romantic love and use as an aphrodisiac. Readers learn about varieties; how to handle, store and preserve figs, and where to find them.

The recipes suggest novel ways to use fresh and dried figs — in appetizers, sandwiches, breads and salads, main courses, side dishes and sweets — and they make clear Simmons' signature skill at creating simple yet delicious recipes.

"I have this rule — don't use too many ingredients," she said. "Whatever ingredients you use, keep the flavors pure."

A pasta recipe, for instance, combines fresh green ripe figs with fettuccine, lemon, rosemary and pine nuts. (She uses green figs here because the skin of a purple fig will bleed into dishes like pasta and risotto and turn the food pink.)

On a recent visit to Portland, Simmons taught students at the In Good Taste cooking school how to make a fresh fig and caramel sauce for ice cream, and how to use warm figs in a salad. She grilled fresh figs, topped them with tangy sheep's-milk ricotta salata (ricotta that has been salted and aged until firm) and tucked them into a bed of arugula, topped with a drape of prosciutto.

"With fresh figs, I always like a little salt to offset the sweetness," she explained later. She likes to cut a fresh fig in half and lightly sprinkle it with salt (like salting a melon), or pair it with cheese or prosciutto, her favorite way of eating figs. "I'm crazy about dried figs with chocolate," she said, adding that slitting a pocket into a dried fig and adding a piece of cheese or walnut is also delicious.

Grilling figs brings out their sweetness and caramelizes them, Simmons explained. To do this, halve the figs and brush them lightly with olive oil or a mixture of honey and lemon and grill until warm, about a minute or two per side.

Simmons ate her first fresh fig in a restaurant shortly after graduating from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., with a degree in food and nutrition. "It was the loveliest, most exotic fruit I'd ever had," she remembered. The high-fiber fruit, generally eaten unpeeled unless the skin is tough, is sweet and the texture is sensuous, she said.

Like many other Italian-Americans, Simmons has eaten dried figs most of her life. Growing up in the Hudson Valley in New York State, she looked forward to them in the holiday fruit bowl. "I loved the crunch and nuttiness," she recalled.

Simmons brought a trained eye to her study of figs. She learned about recipe development in New York City as test-kitchen editor for Woman's Day magazine, restaurant pastry chef, and food editor for Cuisine magazine, which folded in 1986.

That was the year the fast-paced author began writing cookbooks, and she has written a book nearly every year since, garnering awards from the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She has also been a friendly voice to cooks since the late '80s with her columns in Bon Appetit magazine and the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

"I look at food and I have a million ideas," said Simmons, a quick-witted, 5-foot-2-inch dynamo who has just celebrated her 60th birthday.

For the fig book, she came up with the idea of pairing figs with tomatoes in a salad. A chef friend suggested using the most acidic tomatoes she could find so she combined figs with green zebra tomatoes, fresh basil, slivered red onions and fresh corn kernels.

Classic recipes also sparked ideas. Her quesadillas made with fresh figs, cheese, red onion and cilantro have been a hit in her cooking classes. Her sweets recipes include fresh and dried fig smoothies and recipes for baked goods ranging from biscotti to homemade Fig Newtons.

These days, come fig season in early and late summer into fall, Simmons and her husband of 38 years, John, enjoy figs from the tree they planted three years ago. Simmons has been teaching students how to use the sweet fruit and has found the interest overwhelmingly positive.

"Everybody has a fig story," she remarked. Hers is related to her recipe for Nana's Fig-Stufffed Cookies and its influence on her career choice. Her Italian grandmother baked these cream-cheese pastry delicacies with her on Saturdays, encouraging her with love and support and saying she had "hands of gold."

"I think that's what gives me confidence to go on," Simmons said.

PHOTO: Cookbook author and columnist Marie Simmons poses in the garden of her San Francisco Bay-area home in Richmond, Calif., in front of the fig tree that is just coming into season, Tuesday, July 13, 2004. Simmons' latest book is "Fig Heaven," extolling the glories, and the potential for the cook, of this alluring fruit.

Naples Daily News: Food
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Figs are one of the earliest fruits cultivated. Figs were dried and stored for later consumption. There was a fig tree in the Garden of Eden, and the fig is the most mentioned fruit in the Bible. Figs are mentioned in a Babylonian hymnbook dated about 2000 B.C.

As early as 2900 B.C., in early Samaritan times, the medical use of figs was already being stressed. Legend has it that the Greek goddess Demeter first revealed to mortals the fruit of autumn, which they called the fig. It was the favorite fruit of Cleopatra, and she ended her life with an asp brought to her in a basket of figs. Every inhabitant of Athens was a "philosykos," literally translated, "a friend of the fig."

Early Olympic athletes were given figs as a training food and figs were given as laurels to the winners of the first Olympics as a "medal."(1) The Wildlife Conservation Society of New York has recently determined that, in the animal and plant kingdom, the high-calcium content of wild figs makes them a "keystone" fruit, critical to the survival of other plants and animals.

Although considered a fruit, the fig is actually a flower inverted into itself. The seeds are the real fruit in figs. They are the only fruit to ripen fully and semidry on the tree...

Fig History
http://www.nutrafig.com/control.cfm?ID=23