Summer is now behind us, but we can still keep some of its flavors. Certainly figs have mastered the summer tables in appetizers, snacks with pizza, cakes and tarts. Without great effort we can prepare dried figs in view of the Christmas holidays, as a good omen for the year to come. The method is quite simple: you need to collect them when they have reached the right point of ripeness, cut them in half being careful not to split them completely and leave them exposed to the sun for at least three days.
It is therefore essential to turn them over several times a day, remembering to protect them from the mists of the night in the house. As a last step, they are placed in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about ten minutes. This will eliminate any remaining traces of moisture. To your own taste, decide before cooking in the oven whether to close the two parts after inserting an almond or a walnut kernel in the centre.
Fresh figs and dried figs: the properties are reversed
From a nutritional point of view, fresh fruit is extremely low in microelements, except for simple sugars (13g/100g), potassium (270mg/100g) and fiber (5g/100g). This apparent poverty is completely reversed in the sun-dried product because during the drying process the potassium assumes very interesting values (1010 mg/100g). The fiber (18.5 g / 100 g) alone can almost completely satisfy the daily requirement of an adult and the sugars (53 g / 100 g) provide a caloric intake (212 kcal / 100 g) essential for carrying out manual work.
Food of slaves and laborers
For centuries, first the slaves, and then the agricultural laborers of the south, ate dried figs to withstand the hard days of work without damaging the intestinal function and the intense sweating which causes large quantities of potassium to be expelled.
As the Roman agronomist Columella suggested to keep them
After the story of the Roman agronomist Columella, almost nothing has changed in the preservation of fresh fruit [...] "when the figs are dry, they will have to be placed in jars well smeared with pitch, during an afternoon, when they are hot; in these vases the figs must be pressed carefully, but on the bottom a layer of dried fennel is first prepared and likewise the dried fennel is placed on top, when the vase is full; then the jars must be immediately closed with a lid, sealed and placed in the granary, so that the figs are kept better.
Still others choose very large and fleshy green figs, cut them in half with a stick and with their hands, open them and leave them to dry in the sun; then when they are completely dry, during an afternoon, when they are a little softened by the heat of the sun, they collect them and, according to the customs of the Africans and the Spaniards, they bring them close to each other and compress them to make them assume the shape of stars (stellarum) and flowers (flosculorumque) or they pack them in the shape of bread; then they put them back to dry in the sun and finally put them in jars”[…](RR XII,15).
The passage, in fact, is the oldest evidence of the use of combining two fresh halves of cut figs to obtain something very similar to the current Calabrian "crocette".
Wrongly associated with shame
The fig tree is mistakenly associated with shame, since this is the fruit of awareness as we read in the prophet Zechariah [...] "On that day every man will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree" [...] (Zac. 3, 10); even in the Gospel of John we read verbatim vocation [...]" Jesus answered him 'because I told you that I had seen you under the fig tree, do you think so?" […] (Jn 1, 50).
Glucose, in fact, is the main nutrient of nervous tissue and the brain and confers efficiency and functionality to neurons, for this reason its reputation was certainly well deserved.
The identification of sycophants associated with sexual significance
On the other hand, the negative meaning that was attributed to the fruit of the fig tree in the identification of sycophants is very singular. The term, which literally means "to show the fig", was coined to identify imposters, informers and more generally those who spoke of false accusations since it was said that during a famine figs had been stolen from a sacred tree and that the theft was reported only some time later.
In reality, the term sycophant is linked to the ambiguity of the word which was already associated with sexual activity in Greek times. The ambivalence of the term fig, which refers to the genital sphere, is connected to the figure of the sycophant who was the one who revealed things that it was not appropriate to describe and which metaphorically had to remain hidden.
