There aren’t many fruits this soft and pliable.
The fig sits comfortably in the palm of my hand, dimpling easily when I press it. The green-brown-purple skin feels rubbery and flexible with a fine soft fuzz. It begs to be stroked like a pet, or squished between the fingers fingers. Teardrop-shaped, with a thin green hooked stalk at the top and a small hole at the centre of the base through which the pink innards peek… it’s cute fruit!
Peering at the hole in the base… suddenly it doesn’t seem so innocent. It looks disconcertingly like an anus.
Shake that idea away! Carefully pulling the fruit in half, the split begins easily from the hole and works its way up. Tugtugtug and the stalk separates too. Finish the segmenting by tearing the halves into quarters. Easy, no fuss or mess.
It’s amazing what was hidden inside such calm skin! A forest of coral-like creamy pale pink stalks with deeper pink bulbs on the end, little black spots inside some. The polyps look like an anemone, like they were surely waving and moving moments before I pulled the fruit open. They look so fresh and alive, as if the fruit died only moments ago.
Fascinating! But what does it taste like!
Bite in. The skin is slightly chewy with a note of plant bitterness. The inner flesh is moist but not slimy, smooth and easy to eat with the occasionally crunch of a more mature seed.
It tastes like coconut! Like vanilla! It has both those notes in the muted sweetness.
Slurp some of the fronds away from the skin. Without the bitterness it tastes like a delicate exotic butter cake.
Pretty darn tasty. Nothing like dried fig at all in flavour, that’s so rich, this is mellow and gentle, so easy to eat that it’s gone in a moment.
Just as well I bought two…
Rating: 
Specifics: Fresh figs bought at Harris Farm, Merrylands
3 Comments
Found you! Nice to meet you tonight =)
I just read your description of the fig, I only had my first fig recently but I don’t remember it being as you described =D. But I do love your writing, just reading it I could picture the fig in my mind.
What do you remember it being like? I think food experiences are very subjective… which is what makes them interesting to read and blog about! If we all had the same opinion there’d be nothing to discuss! :)
See, I totally suck when it comes to using words to describe what’s going on in my head. I don’t actually remember too much about my experience. But reading your entry just makes me want to go pick up a fig and disect it and eat it slowly =p