Some Cakes are Figgier than Others, Part One

Part One being the nerdy info post.  Part two will contain culinary info and a recipe!  Also, I'm just going to throw this out there: there's a lot of smut in this post; there was really no way around it.

I've been wanting to write about figs for a while now.  In fact, this post was set to go up about a week ago, when my friend put an article on my wall that basically said everything I was hoping to say.  Bah!  It seems I'm not the only person in the world.  After coming up with a recipe to add to this post to make everything a bit more original, here we are.

But first thing's first.  Why was I planning to write about figs?  Simply because I am pretty fascinated by them.  Figs have a lot of interesting secrets, ones that I try to tell people (but they never believe me!).

Let's start off with an easy one:  Figs are not (technically) a fruit.  Think about this: every fruit tree goes into blossom before it bears fruit, right?  Well, go check out a fig tree next time summer rolls around and wait for the blossoms.

There are none!
That's because the blossoms are the figs!

It's true.  If you open up a fig, you'll see all these soft threads and things.  These are the bits that make up the blossom, essentially.  They're like the fig equivalent of a flower's pistel and stamen, depending on whether or not you've got a male fig or a female fig.  You'll see seeds in there, too, which are part of the technical fruits of the fig, but the big plump thing you eat is more like an inside out flower.  Neat, huh?

So let's talk about flowers and plant sex for a bit.  Plants reproduce when a mommy flower and a daddy flower fall in love and pollen goes from one of them to the other (I'm not sure which one, I forget how that whole thing works).  In nature, flowers are often pollinated by insects, such as bees.  Happy Bee Child walks around on the flower, because this is a nice thing for a Happy Bee to do, and unknowingly gets covered in pollen.  You know the rest.  Bee visits flower #2 and carries on the plant's dirty hedonistic business.

So if a fig is an inside out flower, and the flowery reproductive bits are on the inside, how does this pollination happen?  This is the fun part.  Don't let it gross you out, it's just nature, folks.

There's an insect called a fig wasp.  It doesn't really look like a scary bitey type wasp.  It's much smaller and probably doesn't bite.  Let's say there's a female fig wasp flying around looking for a safe place to lay its cache of eggs.  (I'm not sure where the pregnant wasp came from; it's a chicken / egg situation.)  Luckily for Ms. Wasp ("Ms.", because she's on her own but doesn't need the world to know), there is a ficus tree that needs her.  This tree has a plump little pocket of nectar with a hole on the bottom.  The hole is big enough for Ms. Wasp to crawl into, where she'll find a moist, sheltered environment for her eggs.  But alas!  Crawling through the tiny hole has ripped off her wings!  She will die inside the nectar pocket and get digested by its juices, but not before she gets a chance to lay her eggs.

So the eggs hatch, poppin' out male and female wasps.  The baby wasps are quick to get busy with their own reproductive business ("Life is short, can't waste time with all this dating nonsense."  Heathens!).  All that rolling around inside their home means some pollen is going to shake loose.  After they're done doing their thing, the females escape, with buns in the oven and pollen on their wet, naked insect bodies, only to seek out another nectar pocket.  Then they all go dancing till it all starts over again.  Right?  Something like that.

Here's the point: those nectar pockets are figs.  The things human kind have been eating for millenia.  Tree sex organs and combination wasp love nest and sarcophagus, all rolled into one.  The essence of the fig is one madcap romp through Mother Nature's blatantly excessive fecundity.

Now, I don't think there's any guarantee that this happens with every single fig you ever come across, but it certainly happens with enough frequency that any fig lover has most likely eaten one of these red light figs. 

I enjoy telling people this because I get a real kick out of it.  Symbiosis is fascinating, but most people would rather disbelieve or get sick, or both.  Until recently, I only had a Wikipedia article to back me up, and it's so easy for people to disregard Wikipedia when they disagree with it.

But!  Sweet vindication, I was at Powell's the other day reading through the summer issue of Gastronomica.  This is a quarterly journal of food and culture, published by the UC Press in Berkely, CA.  This is legit stuff, not some lame magazine with the top 63 summer grilling recipes.  Anyway, the summer issue had an article written by Gary Paul Nabhan titled "A Fig by Any Other Name."  It was very interesting, mainly comparing and contrasting figs and prickly pears, both of which have been historically and culturally important throughout humanity's life.  (Side note, the prickly pear was sometimes called an "Indian Fig").  He doesn't mention this part, but many cultures hold figs as a symbol of female fertility.  I'm not sure where they get that from.

Nabhan does mention, however, that one of the differences between the two is the whole false fruit thing, and the whole waspy sex thing!  Which is what I was trying to tell people!  And furthermore, here are some great links about the same issues to back me up!  They pretty much say the same thing, albeit much more concisely than my midnite banter will allow.  (Bonus, the first link has PBS videos!!)

Oscillator: Edible Symbiosis
The Kitchn: Strange Symbiosis

Humorous anecdote: I shared some figs and fig knowledge with a friend recently, saving the wasp bit till last, as is my custom (because would you eat a fig if someone told you about that first?).  She looked at me with a shock.  "You mean there were eggs inside here?"  "Well, there may have been.  Or maybe shells."  Still more shock.  that's when it occurred to me: my friend is vegan.  I felt horrible.  She shrugged it off and ate the rest of the fig anyway.  Oops!