A Summer Fling

I have been having a love affair with a new food. This fruit is something I had never, ever eaten before this summer. It's FIGS - yes -- the "passion fruit of the Bible" (this is according to Steve). Now it does state in Genesis 3:7 in the story of Adam and Eve that when they discovered their nakedness they "sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons." According to my research, the health benefits are many! This is what figs look like.

I thought that you peeled them, but no, you just eat them skin and all. They are so delicious! There are different kinds of figs, the light green ones pictured here

are called "white figs" and these are the ones I've been eating and cooking with this summer. My friend at school has a fig tree in her backyard and kept giving me figs. Steve talks about how his Grandma King would have him go gather figs in the summer and she would make jam and cookies with the figs. He was to only bring her the figs on the ground because if you picked them off the tree, they were not ripe. Figs will not ripen after picked. They must ripen on the tree. The truly ripe ones are moist and sweet. When they're not ripe, they are dry and tasteless.

I've make Oatmeal Fig Bars (fantastic, but didn't get a picture),

Fig Jam (mine didn't set up well and is like thick honey, but delicious),

and last Sunday I made Flying Fig Bars (also fantastic if you like an old-fashioned-tasting cookie).

They remind me of raisin-filled cookies that grandmothers would make and you never see anymore. Why? I'm sure because they are too much work. Mmmm - Figs are Fantastic!