Comments on: Luscious Figs & Jamon Iberico de Bellota

By: Maria Rowena Rillen-Rizzi

Maria Rowena Rillen-Rizzi — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:21:16 +0000

I had the most fun time yesterday, picking figs at husband’s family farm in Piove di Sacco, Padova. We picked up a case of figs and some of them are really ripe, so I made some fig jam- it was really nice, I put a little bit of cardamon and vanilla and it came out really good!Fig trees has a lot of resin.. so be careful when picking it!

By: ange

ange — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:53:36 +0000

Mmmmmmmm… the stuff that dreams are made of :D

By: ntgerald

ntgerald — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:24:00 +0000

When I first saw figs in the corner market in Pittsburgh, I asked the Italian lady who manned the store what they were.
She told me they were figs, from California.
So, I asked how does one eat them. As in, do you peel? etc etc
She must have been bewildered at meeting someone who has never seen fresh figs.
“How do you eat them?….Let me see. You take them from the box and put them in your mouth…?

By: Jack Hammer

Jack Hammer — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:31:21 +0000

Figs with Cheese and Champagne !!!! my favourite Dessert.

The purple variety is my favourite and I can eat them by the kilo. I don’t think all figs go dark when ripe. They are very common here in the middle east.

I love the dried figs too. Handy snack which gives good fiber for digestion. I would trade dried figs over Chocolate any day.

By: Rona Y

Rona Y — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 03:13:25 +0000

I loooooove figs!

When I lived in Japan, and fresh figs were plentiful in the fall, I would often use them for an easy dinner. Just sliced figs on saltine crackers, topped with either bleu cheese, camembert, or brie, and heated in my toaster oven for a short time. Mmmmmm. . .

If you can get some good dried figs and also good olives, fig and olive tapenade is really wonderful. I use the recipe on David Lebovitz’s website, and have turned many people on to both figs and olives through it!

By: Footloose

Footloose — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:44:56 +0000

The closest local relative of the edible common fig (ficus carica) is our pakiling or isis (ficus odorata). Never tried biting into one since it is covered with abrasive hair. In fact the leaves would not be suitable as a modesty covering at all, we used them as wet sandpaper.

By: millet

millet — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:23:20 +0000

so if there is a filipino term for figs, does that mean we have local figs? i’ve seen a few fig trees in gen san but they were brought over by OFWs from the middle east.

By: Footloose

Footloose — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:33:59 +0000

In an article on commercial cookie development (in the New Yorker, I think) it was mentioned that almost all cookies fresh out of the oven are great. It is when they have been sitting in the market shelves for months on end that their flavor, texture and appeal start to crumble. Thatâ€™s when the additives come in. Anyway, does anyone notice the resemblance between mooncake crust and fig newton crust or is it just a pigment of my imagination?

By: kurzhaar

kurzhaar — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 04:09:11 +0000

Thanks, Marketman. I’ve been buying at the various farmers markets since the season here is short compared to CA, but I’m going to see if I can find fresh figs (usually CA-grown) as I prefer them to dried and try out a tart of sorts. I have an easy-peasy tart crust that’s based on ground almonds and I think that might be good with the figs.

I should have added that what I recall of my friend’s recipe is that the dough was laid out in a rectangle, the fig filling added, and then the dough folded over to make a long strip. She cut it up into squares after it was baked and it looked for all the world like a fig newton.

By: Marketman

Marketman — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:47:53 +0000

kurzhaar, more a more sophisticated take on that childhood favorite fig newtons, try this fig tart I made a few years ago...