Fig

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The fig, the fruit of a tree known to botanists as Ficus carica, may have been the first plant that people ever grew on purpose. The evidence is nine small figs found at Gilgal I, an early Neolithic village in the Jordan Valley, 13 km north of Jericho. They date to roughly 9400-9200 BCE, which is earlier than the domestication of wheat, barley or legumes. Those figs were sterile, yet researchers propose that someone wanted them anyway and planted them deliberately.

  That ancient choice raises a string of questions. What exactly is a fig, if the thing people eat is not quite a fruit? Why does a food so loved spoil so quickly that most of the world's supply is dried or processed? How did a tree native to the Mediterranean and to western and southern Asia end up spread across the globe? And why do some people refuse to eat it at all?

  19147

• 2. Hidden Flowers

  ›

  Hidden inside every syconium, the hollow, fleshy body of the fig, are numerous tiny flowers of a single sex. They bloom out of sight, lining the inner wall. Botanists classify the syconium as an infructescence, a cluster of fruits, even though everyone calls it a fruit. Each fertilized flower holds one ovule, and that ovule grows into a single-seeded fruit called a drupelet. The little crunchy seeds a diner bites into are really these tiny fruits, which is why the whole fig counts as a false fruit.

  At the apex of the syconium sits a narrow passage called the ostiole. It is built for one specialized visitor, the fig wasp Blastophaga psenes. The wasp enters through this opening and pollinates the flowers within.

  The tree around this strange structure is a deciduous tree or large shrub with smooth white bark. Its fragrant leaves measure some 20 cm long and 14 cm wide, with a rough surface and three or five deep lobes. A milky sap, produced by laticifer cells, runs through the plant.

  Color varies from one cultivar to the next. A mature fig has green skin that sometimes ripens toward purple or brown, and differing concentrations of anthocyanins explain the shift. One of them, cyanidin-3-O-rutinoside, shows up at particularly high levels. Researchers also study other compounds in figs, including the polyphenols gallic acid, chlorogenic acid, syringic acid, catechin, epicatechin and rutin, for possible biological properties.

  Gardeners sort edible figs into three types, according to how much each one needs the wasp. Persistent figs, also called common figs, bear only female flowers and set fruit through parthenocarpy, so no pollination is required. They are popular with home gardeners. Examples include Dottato, also known as Kadota, along with Black Mission, Brown Turkey, Brunswick and Celeste.

  Caducous figs, also called Smyrna figs, work the other way. They need cross-pollination by the fig wasp, carrying pollen from caprifigs, and unpollinated fruits simply drop while still immature. Marabout, Inchàrio and Zidi belong to this group. Intermediate figs, called San Pedro figs, set an unpollinated first crop but need pollination for the later one. Lampeira, King and San Pedro are examples.

  That first crop has a name. The breba crop develops in spring on the previous year's shoot growth, while the main crop grows on the current year's shoots and ripens in late summer or fall. Dozens of cultivars exist, and many are local, found in a single region of one country. Even the wild caprifig, normally inedible, has one edible exception, the Croisic.

  89121118

• 3. Ancient Orchards

  ›

  In ancient Israel, the year brought two fig harvests. An early crop was eaten fresh. A later summer crop, called qayiṣ, was dried or pressed into fig-cakes that could be stored and carried on journeys. At Tel Beit Shemesh, archaeologists found evidence of pressed figs kept in jars. The Hebrew Bible mentions fig trees frequently, and the Lachish reliefs show them alongside grapevines and date palms, confirming their place in the cultivated landscape of Judah.

  In ancient Greece, both Aristotle and Theophrastus wrote about growing figs. Aristotle observed that figs, like animals, come in two kinds. One is the cultivated fig that bears fruit, and the other is the wild caprifig that helps it do so. He also recorded that wild figs contain psenes. These begin life as larvae, and the adult splits its pupal skin and flies out to find a cultivated fig, saving it from dropping.

  Theophrastus compared the process to date palms, where farmers from the East scatter dust from the male onto the female. He also compared it to a male fish releasing milt over the eggs. Greek farmers, he noted, tied wild figs to cultivated trees. Neither writer says outright that figs reproduce sexually.

  Around 590 BCE, the Athenian statesman Solon made a law banning the export of figs from Attica. The Greeks came to prize the fig as a mark of their civilisation, in contrast to the Medes, described as people "who know neither wine nor figs".

  Around 160 BC, Cato the Elder listed several fig strains in his handbook De Agri Cultura. They were the Mariscan, the African, the Herculanean, the Saguntine and the black Tellanian. Romans used figs to fatten geese for a precursor of foie gras. Augustus, Rome's first emperor, was reputed to have been poisoned with figs from his own garden, smeared with poison by his wife Livia. Perhaps for that reason, or perhaps because of her horticultural expertise, a variety called the Liviana was grown in Roman gardens. In the 1st century CE, the naturalist Pliny the Elder recorded thirty varieties, including the Kadota.

  The English word fig is first recorded in the 13th century. It descends from Old French figue, which came from Occitan figa, from a Romance form fica, from Classical Latin ficus. Latin, Armenian t'uz and Greek sykon most likely trace back to a single Mediterranean source, perhaps in a Semitic language. The wild partner has a name with a goat in it. Ficus caprificus Risso blends Latin caper, meaning he-goat, with the English word fig.

  By the Roman era the fig was cultivated from Afghanistan to Portugal, and it also grew in Pithoragarh, in the Kumaon hills of India. From the 15th century onward, it began traveling to Northern Europe and the New World.

  242625622

• 4. New Soil, New Varieties

  ›

  In 1769, Spanish missionaries led by Junipero Serra brought the first figs to California. The variety they cultivated, Mission, is still popular. As the population grew, especially after the gold rush, nurserymen and settlers from the US east coast, France and England brought in other cultivars.

  By the end of the 19th century, California looked like an ideal fig state. Its Mediterranean-like climate and its latitude of 38 degrees lined up San Francisco with İzmir, Turkey. In 1880, G. P. Rixford first brought true Smyrna figs to California. The most popular Smyrna-type cultivar there is the Turkish Lob Injir, sold under a name that blends California and Smyrna. It had been grown in Turkey for centuries before arriving in the latter part of the 19th century.

  Figs have more naturally occurring varieties than any other tree crop, yet a formal breeding program did not begin until the early 20th century. Ira Condit, nicknamed the "High Priest of the Fig", and William Storey tested some thousands of seedlings at the University of California, Riverside. Their work later continued at the University of California, Davis, and the program closed in the 1980s.

  In 1989, insect and fungal disease pressure on both dried and fresh figs led James Doyle and Louise Ferguson to revive the program. They worked from the germplasm that Condit and Storey had established. Two of their varieties are now in production in California. Sierra is a public variety, and Sequoia is patented.

  Germany has no commercial fig growing at all. Figs there are grown mainly in private gardens inside built-up areas. The Palatine region in the German South West has an estimated 80,000 fig trees. About a dozen widespread varieties are hardy enough to survive winter outdoors, mostly without special protection. Two local varieties, "Martinsfeige" and "Lussheim", may be the hardiest in the region.

  In the UK, the common fig is also grown as an ornamental tree. The Royal Horticultural Society has given its Award of Garden Merit to the cultivars Brown Turkey and Ice Crystal. Ice Crystal is mainly grown for its unusual foliage.

  1445713632

• 5. Range and Resilience

  ›

  Wild figs favor dry, sunny places with deep, fresh soil, and they also grow on rocky ground from sea level up to 1,700 m. The tree prefers porous, freely draining soil but can cope with nutritionally poor ground. It tolerates moderate seasonal drought. In the Kūhestān mountains of Khorasan in Iran, a wild variety called the mountain or rock fig, انجیر کوهی, thrives in the cold, dry, semi-arid rocky montane country. The species is also naturalized in scattered locations in Asia and North America.

  Unlike other fig species, F. carica does not always require pollination by a wasp or from another tree. It can be pollinated by Blastophaga psenes to produce seeds, but in colder regions such as the British Isles, fig wasps are simply absent.

  In the 19th century, Italian immigrants carried a winter ritual to New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Toronto. In these cities, winters are normally too cold to leave a fig tree exposed, so they buried theirs. The method involves digging a trench sized to the tree, and some specimens stand more than 3 m tall. The gardener severs part of the root system and bends the tree down into the trench.

  Specimens are often wrapped in waterproof material to discourage mold and fungus. A heavy layer of soil and leaves goes on top, and sometimes plywood or corrugated metal holds it all in place. In a borderline climate like New York City, burying is no longer needed because winter lows have risen. Trees are often wrapped in plastic and other insulation, or left bare if planted in a sheltered spot against a wall that absorbs sunlight.

  Fig plants can be started from seed or by vegetative methods. Seeds germinate readily in moist conditions and grow rapidly once established. Vegetative propagation is quicker and more reliable, and it avoids the inedible caprifigs. Shoots with buds can be planted in well-watered soil in spring or summer. Alternatively, a branch can be scratched to expose the bast, the inner bark, and pinned to the ground so roots form.

  Human migration carried the fig well outside its natural range, and thousands of cultivars, most of them named, have resulted. Figs now grow in hot-summer continental climates as far north as Hungary and Moravia.

  434442918

• 6. Milky Sap, Mixed Reputation

  ›

  Like other members of the family Moraceae, F. carica carries a milky sap that can hurt skin. Contact with the sap followed by exposure to ultraviolet light can cause phytophotodermatitis, a potentially serious skin inflammation. The plant is not poisonous in itself. Even so, it is listed in the US Food and Drug Administration's database of poisonous plants.

  The culprits are furanocoumarins, and the common fig contains significant quantities of two of them, psoralen and bergapten. The essential oil of fig leaves is more than 10% psoralen, the highest concentration of any organic compound isolated from fig leaves. Both chemicals sit in the milky sap of the leaves and shoots. They are absent from the fruit, and neither was detected in the essential oil of the fruits.

  In some old Mediterranean folk practices, the sap was put to work. People used it to soften calluses, remove warts and deter parasites. Since the late 1800s, syrup of figs combined with senna has served as a laxative.

  Figs have also been thought to be aphrodisiac. One suggested reason is that they may encourage sexual arousal. Another is that the fruit's shape suggests female genitalia, an association that runs deep in the fig's cultural story.

  5052496163

• 7. From Tree to Table

  ›

  In the Northern Hemisphere, fresh figs are in season from August to early October, and the window is short for a practical reason. Ripe figs bruise easily and do not keep well. Most commercial production is therefore sold dried or processed into jam, rolls, biscuits and other desserts.

  Cooks look for fresh figs that are plump and soft, without bruising or splits. A sour smell means the fruit is over-ripe. Slightly under-ripe figs can sit at room temperature for 1-2 days before serving, and figs taste most flavorful at room temperature.

  Freshly harvested figs can be preserved by two distinct drying methods. In sun-drying, the figs are exposed to the warmth and light of the sun. In oven-drying, they are placed in a temperature-controlled oven. Each method leaves its own mark on the texture and flavor of the finished fruit.

  In 2024, world production of raw figs was 1.34 million tonnes. Turkey led with 28% of the world total. Egypt, Algeria and Morocco were the other largest producers, and these four countries together accounted for 61% of the total.

  A raw fig is 79% water, 19% carbohydrates and 1% protein, with negligible fat. A 100-gram serving provides 310 kJ of food energy and 14% of the Daily Value of dietary fiber. Raw figs do not supply essential micronutrients in significant amounts.

  Drying changes the picture. When dehydrated to 30% water, figs are 64% carbohydrate, 3% protein and 1% fat, and a 100-gram serving provides 1041 kJ. Dried figs are a rich source of fiber, at more than 20% of the Daily Value, and of manganese, at 26%. Calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium and vitamin K appear in moderate amounts.

  The sugars inside are nearly balanced. Glucose and fructose occur in almost identical amounts, with glucose slightly ahead overall and sucrose minimal. In some varieties, fructose can occasionally edge past glucose.

  4754595857

• 8. Sacred Trees and Wasps

  ›

  In Babylonian mythology, the goddess Ishtar took the form of a divine fig tree named Xikum, called the "primeval mother at the central place of the earth". In that story she was the protectress of the saviour Tammuz. Figs and fig trees were closely linked with female sexuality. Barbara Walker's reference work on Goddess symbols says: "This may account for the common use of the fig tree as a symbol of man's enlightenment, which was formerly supposed to come through his connection with the female principle."

  Around 500 BCE, Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment after meditating for seven weeks, or 49 days, beneath a Ficus religiosa, the bodhi tree. The site is in present-day Bodh Gaya, and its bodhi tree has been replaced several times. In Islam, Surah 95 of the Qur'an is named al-Tīn, Arabic for "The Fig", because it opens with the oath "By the fig and the olive."

  In the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve clothe themselves with fig leaves in Genesis 3:7 after eating the forbidden fruit. Fig leaves, or painted and carved versions of them, have long covered the genitals of nude figures in painting and sculpture. In the Talmud, Rabbi Nehemya held that the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden was a fig tree. A Christian tradition adds that it was the same fig tree that Christ withers in the Gospels.

  A very different question concerns strict vegetarians, vegans and adherents of Jainism. Fig and fig wasp are locked in an obligate mutualism, meaning each depends on the other. In natural pollination, female wasps die inside the syconium, so the resulting fruit contains the digested matter of an insect.

  Some vegans accept traditional figs on the grounds that the wasp's death is a naturally occurring event. Strict Jains often reject them. To serve these markets, growers sometimes turn to parthenocarpic cultivars, which ripen without insect pollination. The sterile figs of Gilgal I were of this same parthenocarpic type.

  6366676873