That’s how I look at it. Maybe they are like the rare orchid collectors. I grew up with Kadota and Black Mission. We had lots of figs from in-ground trees. We didn’t try for perfect ripeness. They were generally all good to eat when we picked them. Some better than others for ripeness. But when we eat a bunch of figs every day at a sitting, we were not that fussy. We were also not that fig knowledgeable, we just ate em, so we didn’t know all the details on figs.
When compared to store-bought figs, the home grown were all fantastic. I can’t say about all figs. But for our figs, in L.A., the dew drop and some stretch marks said they were nice and ripe. We didn’t go for the sickly, shriveled up look some people go for. But if shriveled up is your thing, then so be it.
Here is what you ripe perfectionists should do. (If you got lots of figs on a tree to test.) Pick figs at all ripeness levels and take photos of it. Keep some on the tree even after they look past due date. Then maybe you will find the sweet spot for you.
A YT channel used a needle to prick the fig stem. No milk and it meant it was ready to go for eating. Well, that’s too anal for me. But if your tree only produced a handful of figs, then maybe it is a tool you can use.
When in a hurry we would pick Kadotas and get some milk on the top of the fig once in a while. We just cut the stem area back about a 1/4 inch into the top of the fig with a knife and it was still good eating. But it was not as sweet as a riper fig. Like I said we had loads of figs and didn’t care that much. We ate all levels of ripeness. But getting close to good ripeness is best. I didn’t grow any trees back then. I just picked figs from parent’s tree. They didn’t know much about figs either. My grandma from Sicily planted them. Even so, I have many decades experience picking figs from these old trees we used to have.
Here is another trick if you have an underripe fig. You cut it in half and sprinkle a dash of sugar on it. Then let it sit some for sugar to melt. We didn’t do that in L.A., I came up with this technique to make crappy Rustbelt store-bought figs sweeter. A lady down the street brought me back some store-bought figs from CA from one of here trips there. They were generally poor for ripeness. Picked too green. But sugar helped some of them sweeten up.
Off topic but Melon I really like your dog avatar. I keep staring at it every time it comes up. What a sweet sweet, very patient dog you have.She (?) looks like she hates dress up and is tortured by it but will do it anyway just for you. Mine loves it.
Apples have a much broader taste and texture spectrum. They even have very different looks. It’s not just impressions it is borne out in the genes, there is more diversity in apples than other fruits.
That said I would agree that you can have too many apple varieties after awhile, especially if you get a lot of similar varieties.
No way, figs are waayyy more diverse in flavor. Like its not even close. Texture ill give you. Theres differences in figs but certainly not as much as apple
I like this chart from thefigjam.co to go through all the types of flavors. Read the flesh and skin color chart separate. So the middle describes flavor of flesh, outside is flavor of skin. Inside is just categories
Oooh, what a lovely chart! Thank you for posting it! I downloaded it for personal reference.
Apples seem to have a lot of flavor diversity, quite possibly more than figs. I’m not an expert on either, so I could be wrong about that – I don’t know the bredth of how flavor diverse figs are!
Steven Edholm has described apple varieties that taste like cherries, strawberries, bananas, anise, seafood, and a whole host of other wild things, so I clearly need to collect weird ones that sound delicious to me so I can cross them and see what I get.
I’d totally be doing the same thing with figs if they were as easy to breed as apples, but their dioeciousness and the lack of any fig wasps in my climate makes that much harder.
Not mentioned on this chart, but there are definatelt bananay figs. Izbat an naj (confirmed by me) and siblawi (just rooting one right now). Yogurt is a common flavor in a slightly unripe fig as well. For example my Adriatic jh tastes like strawberry jam when ripe, but when picked a little early tastes like strawberry yogurt. Coconut, rum, guava, and mango are things too.
Ive heard banana in apples but the ones ibe tried do not taste it at all.
Ill give you seafood is unique. Never tried it. But I think ill pass on that lol
I dont have fig wasp either but I just rooted some capri-q to hand pollinate this year
Oh, NICE! How banana-y are those figs? Are any of them self-fertile and cold hardy enough for zone 7? I’ve gotta track one down, if I could grow a fig like that here.
This is the first I’ve heard of Capri-q. It sounds like a great pollinator! I’ve been eyeing Gillette for awhile, because a tasty caprifig pollinator seems like it would be well worth adding. (Even though I’d have to hand-pollinate.) If there’s another caprifig that tastes good too, then oooh. Do you have any idea what its cold hardiness is like?
Man, now you’ve got me poking at Figaholics and wondering if I ought to place an order there for both of those edible caprifigs, but I’d want to find several more varieties that are a good fit for my climate in order to justify the postage . . . Got any recommendations for zone 7 self-fertile figs he has, especially ones with really neat flavors?
I do think many of these flavors are only hints, not full on concentrated flavors. I grow ‘English Brown Turkey’ and it would never occur to me to compare it to a peach. More like cream.
I’ve been growing Brown Turkey, Celeste, Chicago Hardy, and Black Mission figs for about twenty years. Just about every year I get low growing branches that touch the ground. In the fall I mound a bunch of good soil on top of a couple of nodes and put a couple of big rocks on top. By mid spring the roots have grown well enough to cut the branch.from the main tree and dig up the root ball. I don’t need any new figs so I just give these new ones to friends and family so they won’t have to pay out the nose for a potted tree. Either way it takes a couple of years for most fig cultivars to produce but at least these are free.
interesting, i grow a few english brown turkey types and they taste quite a lot like peach! Olympian and sodus sicilian. They have to get perfectly ripe though to get there but they ripen quite easy by me. make sure youre picking when theyre completely soft all the way up the neck
The banana-y apples thing is real. It can be more or less pronounced and is more like those banana candies than the actual raw fruit. Isoamyl acetate is the ester.
I’m fine with better known fig varieties. I don’t live in a place with fig wasps, can have pretty cold Winters, and don’t have the longest growing season. There’s a lot of commonly available ones that fig collectors, who aren’t trying to sell you something, say taste pretty good and are productive.
If the fig comes off easily, and doesn’t bleed from the stem, I consider it ripe. (Skin color has changed and they’ll be visibly drooping at this point, too.) I organza bag a lot of them to keep ants/birds off and don’t (intentionally) let them dehydrate on the tree. I like them either fresh ripe off the tree or after they’ve been in the fridge for a day or two and gotten extra gooey on the inside and shriveled a bit.
I wonder if any Fig peeps do public tastings. I wouldn’t spend hundreds or thousands like some people do on fig cuttings… But I’d do a fancy $50 - $100 fig tasting with 1 or 2 figs from each flavor of that spectrum, maybe a couple times over the summer if can’t be fit into 1 week’s session :). Someone ask the “FigBoss” in Philly to do one of these tastings per week in the summer haha. I bet he’d find a market for it vs sending everything to fancy restaurants pretend
Got any recommendations for zone 7 self-fertile figs he has, especially ones with really neat flavors? 