Ounce for ounce, figs provide a nutritional punch that is hard to match by any other fruit and loaded with fiber, calcium and potassium.
Figs are believed to be indigenous to western Asia and to have been distributed by man throughout the Mediterranean area. Remnants of figs have been found in excavations of sites traced to at least 5,000 B.C. In the United States, the major centers for commercial production of cultivated figs are California and Texas. The more popular Californian varieties are packed fresh or dried. Most Texas figs are canned. Figs were brought to California by the Spanish missionary fathers who first planted them at the San Diego Mission in 1759. Fig trees were then planted at each succeeding mission, going North through California. The Mission fig, Californias leading black fig, takes its name from this history. The popular Calimyrna fig, golden brown in color, is the Smyrna variety that was brought to California's San Joaquin Valley from Turkey in 1882, and was renamed Calimyrna in honor of its new homeland.
All right, fig lovers, this is Ross the Fig Boss. We've been harvesting a lot of figs here. We are definitely in the midst of fig season. It is the best time of the year. And I get this question a lot around this time of the year, which is, is the skin of a fig edible? And what parts of the fig should I eat, and which parts of the fig should I not? Do you ever give a fig to somebody that has never had a fig before? And they're How do I eat it? And it's like, man, just take a bite, But simply put, you can eat the skin of a fig. In fact, I would highly recommend eating the skin of a fig. It often has its own flavor. It often has its own texture. And in my opinion, it can be one of the better parts of the fig, maybe even sometimes better than the pulp. There are certain varieties I've had other figs in the past, Nerochella de Elba as an example has a bitter skin that almost tastes a bit So you don't want to miss the skin. Now, I'll tell you this, if the fig is under ripe, and I see this a lot in other people's videos, other information on the internet, if the fig is under ripe, it's very easy to peel the skin away from the pulp. And you can just come in here right at the top and peel that off. The more ripe it is, the skin kind of melds with the pulp and they kind of become one. In fact, you can even see on a couple of these figs that the pulp kind of melds and bleeds into the pith or the skin. And the skin kind of becomes one with the pulp, as I said. So see that right there, that here's the pulp, here's the skin, but in between the two is this white area. And that's called the pith. And that should be more of a darker color when you actually harvest your figs, instead of a very pure bright white. It should be more yellow. And as the figs start to rip, and as I said, that pith, the pulp almost bleeds into the pith and it all kind of becomes one. So if you're gonna be peeling the skin of your figs, my point is you're probably not harvesting them when they're ripe. Because it's really difficult to peel the skin off of a fig that's very ripe. Now, some people They I mean, that's what a lot of these are to me, is I eat these and it's I mean, that is just, to me, it's incredible. You don't have to bake them, you don't have to process them. You don't even have to make them in the jam. They're already jammed. So I think for me, you have to eat the skin. I think there's probably a lot more nutrients in the skin that we're aware of. But I'll say this, if the figs are not very ripe, So if you're not really enjoying the skin, again, it's because you're harvesting them too early and that resinous grassy flavor goes away as the figs ripen. And you'll see it at the top of the fig here that figs ripen from the bottom up. So the top's gonna be less ripe than the bottom. And the top of the fig's gonna have more of that grassy, resinous flavor that a lot of people don't So that's why I think a lot of people peel the skin and take the top off, at least this upper part of the peel, and then eat the rest, is because it doesn'taste very good. Now, the whole fig is edible. I'll say that as well. I think even the stem, the stem's edible, but you don't wanna eat it. So do yourself a favor, and the stem can be obviously larger, shorter, or smaller depending on the variety. This one here has a longer stem, and so this is quite woody and not really good to eat. So if you're gonna eat the fig, what I would recommend is taking the fig by the bottom. This is what I always check the figs because I wanna see the inside. I You can separate them, and then I'll eat one half here, and the other half I'll hold by the stem, eat that, but throw away the stem. And that's pretty much right there, how to eat them, if the skin's edible, which parts of the fig are edible. Please do me a favor, hit the Check out my blog, figboss. com. There'so much other fig-related information there. You're gonna love it.
