Figs - look beautiful, don't like the taste - or do I?

"The characteristics of a ripe fig (which is technically more flower than fruit) - its soft, almost rotting juicy centre, its sweet aromas and gooey-crunchy textures - give it the classic erotic associations. "

Yotam Ottolenghi

So here you have Titian's version of Adam and Eve - it's just one of many. And the fig leaf, as we know, was often used to cover up the naughty bits in pantings for hundreds of years. Well it's quite a big leaf, and common in the warmer parts of Europe.

It comes from the Middle East and western Asia and was one of the first plants to be cultivated. I'm guessing it grows easily in these climes because whenever I see a fig tree it seems to be thriving and in season is absolutely laden with fruit. Not that it's really a fruit:

"a cluster of more than a thousand tiny flowers that blossom unseen beneath the silky skin and then go on to produce the "fruitlets", or seeds." Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall

I particularly remember one French house that we rented that had a most wonderful stone terrace - the house was built into the old wall of the village - on which was a fig tree laden with fruit and which provided welcome shade from the hot summer sun. Alas, when we went back there a few years later they had cut it right back. Well it was large and no doubt the falling leaves in autumn and the falling fruit in summer were a problem. But there was no longer any shade. And the Morton Bay fig trees that grace our parks in Melbourne are just wonderful, wonderful trees. Buddha sat under one I believe and was enlightened.

But the fruit is also beautiful and amazingly versatile and can also be dried to preserve it to be eaten out of season. And therein lies my aversion to it I think. School dinners used to feature dried figs either on their own, stewed I guess, or in a very stodgy pudding. I can't quite remember to be honest, and It's obviously not really the dried figs themselves because I do like a good sticky fig pudding (though I prefer a date one). I have even eaten and enjoyed those tiny wild figs, dried, that you can buy. But still figs, and dried figs especially do not appeal. I think it's all those gritty little bits - sort of like seeds. And yet at the same time, a bit like oysters now that I come to think of it, they are aesthetically very appealing to me. It's the colouring and the texture of the skin I think which contrasts with the fleshy inside.

The English of course can't really grow fig trees but they use dried figs - figgy pudding being the classic. And yet it turns out that figgy pudding is actually Christmas pudding - or plum pudding. And as someone pointed out these days Christmas pudding tends not to have either figs or plums in it. Maybe it once did.

But yes you can make virtually anything from them and pair them with virtually anything too. The most famous being prosciutto:

"I grew up eating Figs and Prosciutto: stem figs, quarter them, and grind on some pepper. Drape slices of prosciutto over the top. The ultimate three-ingredient recipe!" Susan Westmoreland - GH

But if you want fancy things like this one (a chocolate fig cake) then you should go to

Gourmet Traveller which has over a dozen very appealing looking recipes for fancy things - savoury and sweet. I could be tempted.

And why did I write this? They must be in season for one of my Sunday luncheon guests from a week ago brought me some from their garden - most of them were consumed with the cheese, and another guest brought me a jar of home-made fig jam. Then today we went to their house and were served a delicious fig cake. So I do like them - but at a distance I think as it were. Just raw - no. There's something about them that almost repels me. Another failure as a gourmet! Although even Yotam Ottolenghi - who is a fan - says he can't eat a whole one raw. So maybe it's not just me.