Note: This notebook originally appeared on July 9, 2005 on The Bee's editorial page. I present it as evidence that an editorial writer doesn't necessarily need to abandon food writing upon returning to the job.
On the hottest days in the Central Valley, the coolest shade can be found beneath the boughs of an old fig tree. One recent afternoon, I sought refuge under one of these shady seniors, and was immediately taken back to my hometown - Fresno.
Fresno, named by the Spanish for the ash trees that lined the San Joaquin River, once boasted the largest concentration of figs in the Western Hemisphere. Fresno competed with the whole of Greece and Turkey to be the Big Fig of the fruit world. Then in 1922, a developer named J.C. Forkner had the ripe idea to sell "fig farms" to doctors and lawyers who, like Adam and Eve, might want to lead a modest life surrounded by fig leaves.
That was the beginning of Fig Garden Village. And it was the beginning of the end for the figs.
As every Fresno kid knows, you don't want to take a nap under a ripe fig tree. Fall asleep in the cool shade, and ants will crawl into your snoring nostrils. When the figs are ripe, you pull out the ladders, call your friends and pick the fruit. Otherwise, the ground becomes an open-face sandwich of fig jam.
Residents of Fig Garden Village eventually grew tired of this relentless bounty. They cut down the fig trees and planted hedges to screen their hot tubs from the neighbors. Fed by land speculation, the city sprawled north and abandoned its downtown. The remaining commercial orchards soon became subdivisions.
For this reason and others, California has lost much of its fig heritage. The peak year was 1933, when 46,400 acres were planted. That has now dropped to fewer than 13,000 acres, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While California remains in the top three of world production, the future of this tear-shaped fruit remains fragile, like a fig.
California, as has been said many times, doesn't know what it's losing. In New York City, people pay $5 a carton for figs. Here they fall to the ground, scorned and ridiculed. Few people know you can cook them into jam, mix them with walnuts and cinnamon, and then tuck them into buttery dough that turns golden in the oven. Nor do they know you can wrap them with prosciutto, skewer them with rosemary and grill them for a few minutes. It's a little taste of heaven.
Aside from being healthy and full of antioxidants, figs are one of our links with the old world. They are frequently mentioned in the Bible and in the works of ancient philosophers. Pliny the Elder once said these fruits "increase the strength of young people, preserve the elderly in better health and make them look younger with fewer wrinkles."
In other words, figs are better than Botox.
Now there's a marketing pitch for the California Fig Commission.
Bee photo by Florence Low.
