Here’s a table of fig flavors with a few cultivars filled in plus several “cherry” flavored figs claimed by others. I’d like to limit the table to distinct flavors, not A x B plus a little bit of C.
I plan to update this table throughout the year. Our figs are grown outdoors year-round and “the wasp” comes here perhaps 1 out of 3 years. If I spray in early Spring with Thiolux there are no wasps period that year.
Here’s a link to the “live” document with the latest edit date in the upper left corner.
Mellineal Gardner from YT… describes his Olympian figs as peaches and honey.
He is in NC near the coast.
I only have my monster chicago hardy… and they are delicious… but i never really thought strawberry when eating them. It seems much more like a berry blend of some kind with awesome figgyness… but not over the top in the strawberry direction.
I would love to have a fig that truly tasted like strawberry.
Would love to see each flavor column sorted best to worst on flavor match for that column.
I want the most strawberry fig there is out there
Very new to figs but Millenial Gardner on Youtube says Smith is “strawberry syrup” flavor; “what do I mean by strawberry syrup? I mean it tastes just like strawberries” “a delicious sweet strawberry flavor”
at the 11:30 mark
I have smith cuttings I am rooting so not there yet but maybe others can chime in on their smith taste like strawberries opinion…
his next variety is White Madeira #1 - “this is like eating thick strawberry preserves right out of the jar” “absolutely phenomenal” “different than strawberry syrup” “extremely thick and rich and jammy”
Seeing how you’ve labeled VDB has me even more excited for it now. These lists are a great help for picking varieties, thanks for your effort and time!
@Chiruchi84
I expect this table to significantly evolve this year as experienced collectors chime in and taste tests ensue. VdB though will stay where it is.
My intention is to only include cultivars that strongly resemble a flavor and exclude others. To do otherwise would be misleading. I suspect the “Cherry” category currently needs a lot of culling.
Also, the above list is only one dimension of a larger database. In it you will be able to cross-reference with “keepers”, etc.
Thank you Richard! I like the vectorized approach to describing the flavor a lot! I’d love to also see something similar for other fruits, and for figs in particular, the addition of seeds and general textures
I find that the fig known in the US as “Unknown Pastiliere” has strong berry (raspberry) flavor. It occurred to me tho that this variety is likely a named variety for which we lost the name, and so it may become represented in the dataset twice, once under its older name, once as “unknown pastiliere.” I was not sure if you’d include it in your dataset. Should I add it, or only varieties with a firmer identification? Maybe I’m overthinking it
In any case, I will follow this with interest, thanks
Edit: To me Unk P tastes more like raspberry than strawberry, but it’s really a mix of both. Like a jam that’s 2/3 raspberry and 1/3 strawberry. I didn’t see a column for raspberry tho. Would you place the flavor I describe under strawberry, or would you add another column for raspberry? Or perhaps both? Thx
2nd edit: Reading your intro again, now I’m wondering whether any figs with mixed flavors should be excluded, as this is specifically meant to tabulate figs with distinctive / “not mixed” flavors.
Though it’s going to be imprecise and subjective, I think this is a great idea and hope others will contribute so you end up with something that reflects average consensus.
@MaracujA
You are correct. Figs with unmixed flavors are necessary to establish a coordinate basis. Afterwards, mixed flavors can be used for the evolution of the coordinate space.
