Gardens of Salonica Traditional and modern Greek cuisine

Sorting the prepped Brown Turkey figs waiting to be poached, I was enveloped in memories of long summer evenings years ago. It was, what I would call the idyllic, and, therefore, very short period in my life--we lived at the end of a cul-de-sac on Mariposa Way, in Lodi, California for 18 months and just when it seemed that this would be a permanent paradise, my father was transferred to a place that was unimaginably far away and completely foreign: Golden Valley, Minnesota.

But back to my ruminations of today: it became clear as I sorted the overripe and fermented from the plumped and fragrant that out of the over 750 "known" species of figs, I was holding that very variety that was the focus of my brief period of bliss. The centurion tree with its broad span of thick and slippery limbs riddled with abrupt, arthritic joints was the epicenter in an almond orchard that was our escape after a day of chores to which we'd run every night. My sisters and I named the main branches--I still remember the gentle arcing of "Rainbow Path," the twisted tangle "Dead Man's Pass," and the exhilaration of "Tarzan's Swing" We'd scramble up (we each had our preferred post) and sit jabbering like dusk birds stuffing our mouths full of sun-warmed, rich and satisfying fruit.

We learned to "know" the phases of ripeness as well. They ranged from unripe: firm outside, dry and pale pink inside and oozing sticky white milk, slightly caustic from the freshly broken off stem--these were hardly worth the effort. There were the softer fruit, watermelon-next-to-the-rind pink that was fragrant, but barely sweet--like watermelon next to the rind. But if we were lucky--and so we kept stretching ever further to that next branch--we could reach and snag a soft, melt-in-your-mouthfull of unbelievable warmth, sweetness, and texture unmatched by anything I've eaten to this day. And that's what I was thinking while pulling the overripe fruit out of the bowl. Apparently the prep staff had not the experience and the whiff of fermentation characteristic of the final stage had gone undetected. But, as kids in the fig tree, we ate those then, and now I ate some as well....just because.

Figs have fascinating and methusalehan lifespans. If interested to read more, check out the website below.

Pollinators of fig trees - Figs and Fig Wasps
www.figweb.org/Interaction/Who_pollinates_fig_trees/index.htm -