italian fig trees | ficus carica

We got an email from Amy, who is looking for a recipe for cuccidadas, (or possibly cuchidahti, or cuddureddi, or even cucidati the spelling varies a lot.)

Hi,
Since you know a lot about Italian fig trees and such, I was curious if you knew of an
Italian fig cookie recipe? Or if not, at the very least, would you
happen to know where I can find good fresh figs in New York City?

Amy (NYC)

Hi Amy,
There are some recipe links out there, if you flex the spelling of the name a little, so I’ve posted them for you, but I wasn’t familiar with it myself.
Here’s what we found:
Sicilian Fig Cookies
Italiancook.com
Inmamaskitchen.com

As for the fresh figs, you may try the Union Square Green Market, but it’s hard for us to know: we’re around 60 miles from NYC…and as you may imagine, we never have to go out looking for fresh figs!
Thanks for your questions!
Tina

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

We’ve imported our Flickr.com photo albums so you can see our photos without leaving…the added bonus for us is that we can see and display your comments from Flickr, right here, so WE don’t have to leave the site!
By the way, feel free to post your comments about the photos on Flickr…we enjoy reading them. We will answer all your questions about fig trees, as soon as possible, but we don’t always see the questions sent via a comment. The best way to ask a question is to click “Contact” above, and send us your question that way.

Thanks!