{"id":45407,"date":"2014-09-12T04:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T08:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/improvisedlife.com\/?p=45407"},"modified":"2014-09-11T21:19:27","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T01:19:27","slug":"september-fig-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/improvisedlife.com\/2014\/09\/12\/september-fig-season\/","title":{"rendered":"September is Fig Season! Riffs and a Recipe"},"content":{"rendered":"
We “awoke with a start” realizing it is full-tilt fig season when a reader wrote to say she applied our tomato drying technique <\/a>to figs, which she has in abundance on her tree.<\/p>\n Oh my. It’s fig season! What\u00a0is so grand about figs is that they are perfect\u00a0unadorned\u00a0or paired with the simplest of foods, prosciutto and raspberries being one of our favorites (recipe-ette, below). But figs also\u00a0love\u00a0salami or just about any cured pig product (even bacon), and cheeses from fresh ricotta to creamy robiola to Manchego. Look\/listen to a fig and it will TELL you what to try pairing it with.<\/p>\n The key is to buy figs ripe, or allow them to ripen if still firm: their flesh should give\u00a0softly when pressed, but not be withered. Sometimes we smear a tad of creme fraiche or whipped cream onto half of one to eat as a sublime dessert. We like to remember that we are not actually eating a fruit but a flower (or a sort of flower). Unlike other tree fruits, fig trees have no blossoms on their branches; their flowers are inverted and develop inside the fruit, producing the small crunchy seeds that give them their unique texture. Dig this description from Wikipedia<\/a>:<\/p>\n …the fig is actually the infructescence or scion of the tree, known as a false fruit or multiple fruit, in which the flowers and seeds are borne. It is a hollow-ended stem containing many flowers. The small orifice (ostiole) visible on the middle of the fruit is a narrow passage, which allows the specialized fig wasp Blastophaga psenes to enter the fruit and pollinate the flower, whereafter the fruit grows seeds….<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n THAT changes the view, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n