From June 24th to September 2nd, I’ll be at the Open Air Market in High Bridge with trees for sale. If you have any questions about what kind of trees we’ll be selling, just give us a call: (908) 832-7770.
If you need more information about the market, here’s their website: http://www.highbridge.org/events.html#High_Bridge_Open_Air_Market
Note to all: I’ve moved comments to the FAQs section, since they didn’t have anything to do with this topic. Please post your comment to the appropriate section (FAQs, winter care, etc.), so that the conversation is easy for all to follow. And as always, if you are trying to email Al, don’t leave your question as a comment. Send an email to: al@italianfigtrees.com. Thanks!
Because fig recipes are still pretty hard to find, I added some Amazon links to cookbooks to the site’s menu (waaay down on the right side), and I’d like to recommend a couple of recipes from each book.
A note on making preserves:
Figs are often a bit bland and sweet, when made into jam. To counteract this, the use of lemon, ginger, sesame seeds, strawberries, or other acid or bright/strong notes round out the flavor.
About the recipes: If you have your own fig recipes (dried or fresh) and want to share them on italianfigtrees.com, please email my dad, Al. If we get enough, we may start a recipe section for the site.
Fig Heaven by Marie Simmons
You can go hog-wild with the recipes in this book, and it’s an enjoyable read as well.
It’s hard to narrow the recommendation down to just a few, but I’ll try:
Grilled fresh figs on rosemary skewers, p.29
Warm fresh fig salad with comte cheese and black forest ham, p.49
Fresh fig galette, p.103
From The Land of Figs and Olives by Habeeb Salloum and James Peters
(Note: this is not a “fig cookbook”, but a Middle Eastern one that has a good fig jam recipe.)
Fig Jam, p.219
Recipe includes pine nuts, fennel seeds, cloves, and sesame seeds…you can leave out the fennel seeds, but try to make it with the pine nuts, if you have them.
Our daughter heard an NPR story about the possible earliest known cultivated crops: figs! They were found in the ruins of an 11,400-year-old house, if you can imagine that. So, all you fig growers out there: we’re in good company.
Read the article on NPR’s website here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5446137
