Posted on Thu, Jul. 24, 2008

A year ago, I had the exquisite pleasure of plucking perfectly ripe figs from handsome, mature trees at the University of California Wolfskill Experimental Orchards, a gene bank for grape vines, nut and fruit trees near Winters, Calif.

Used to the mild sweetness of the generic black figs that grow in my New Jersey garden, I was stunned by the broad range of flavors and colors. Some dark-skinned fruits had pinkish flesh as sweet as a date with no hint of acidity, while others were creamy yellow with green stripes and flesh as brightly tart and ruby red as a strawberry.

If this tree-side banquet were not enough, I joined scientists Vito S. Polito and Ed Stover and a group of other chefs and food writers in a formal tasting. We feasted on more amazing figs, and learned that the striped ones I could not stop eating, called Panachee, could be ordered as cuttings (see box).

It's one of more than 100 fig varieties growing at the Wolfskill Orchards, including commercial cultivars like the sweet and juicy, pear-shaped Mission fig, the workhorse of the California fig industry. This fig collection, one of the largest in the world, is a resource for researchers and farmers and a safeguard for the future of this ancient fruit tree.

The fig (Ficus carica) embodies the essence of the sunny Mediterranean. It is the product of thousands of years of human intervention in that region after the ficus genus somehow arrived from its presumed tropical or subtropical birthplace in Asia.

On a recent excavation in the lower Jordan Valley, archaeologists found carbonized remains of domesticated figs thought to be more than 11,000 years old. To put that date in perspective, Mediterranean crops such as olives and grapes were not domesticated until 5,000 years later.

From the Middle East, the fig spread throughout the Mediterranean basin, first with the Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans, and later with the conquering Arabs who perfected its cultivation in Sicily and Al-Andalus in southern Spain. The sturdy tree with its sculptural, light gray trunk and deciduous, palmate leaves flourished in the poor, craggy soils of the region.

Food for poor and rich alike, figs figure prominently in the arts. There are depictions of the fig harvest in Egyptian tombs and of fat figs stacked in baskets on Roman wall paintings. There is a curse on a fig tree in the Bible, detailed planting instructions in Islamic agricultural manuals from Spain and intriguing fig recipes in medieval cookbooks. In a monumental 1726 French painting by Alexander-Franc¸ois Desportes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, rows of voluptuous black figs sit on a tiered silver tray next to a carved ham.

Figs crossed the Atlantic with the Spanish conquistadors and found a welcoming home in the temperate regions of Latin America as well as the more humid Caribbean, where higueras (fig trees) were often grown as ornamentals. Today, Brazil is one of Latin America's largest fig producers.

The fig industry of California owes its start to the Franciscan missionaries, who brought cuttings of a dark-skinned Spanish cultivar believed to have originated in the Balearic Islands. This was the ancestor of the appropriately named Mission fig, a sturdy plant that does well in sunny California, the considerably cooler Northeast and even in hot and humid Florida.

Latin Americans have a sweet spot for figs cooked in sugar syrup (they also add fig leaves to syrups as a flavoring) as well as for dried figs, which we usually eat with dates and nuts during our Christmas feasts.

In countries where dulce de leche is popular, cooks pair figs with this ultra-sweet confection. In Chile I once tasted a huge cake made entirely of layered fresh fig slices held together with dulce de leche.

Much as I enjoy such treats, I am a lover of fresh figs. To me, no other fruit is as elegant or more sensual. Paired with serrano ham or aged Manchego or Parmigiano Reggiano cheese or drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil and a good red wine vinegar, it makes a sensational instant tapas.

Lightly grilled over a wood fire and dusted with smoked paprika and sea salt, figs are a lovely side dish for game or pork. And there is no better dessert after a summer meal than fresh figs with honey for dipping.

I'm sharing two simple fig recipes (and a third one, with olive oil, vinegar and ground chile, at MiamiHerald.com/Food) that I love to serve for casual summer entertaining.

Maricel E. Presilla is the chef/co-owner of Cucharamama and Zafra in Hoboken, N.J.