WebWeaver™ #02: Figs
I blame this on Sylvia Plath's Fig Tree metaphor. Oh, and welcome back!
Figs became a profound interest in my life because of the Fig Tree metaphor in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Despite this desire to accomplish many goals and do so many things, I also learned to have a more sustainable mindset toward my life’s fig tree. I believe life is ever-changing and that even when indecision breeds bruised fruit, the fig tree grows throughout the seasons. It took a long while to get here, and it's still a struggle...but I'd like to believe that there are plenty more figs to grab in this lifetime.
🌿 The Fig Tree Metaphor from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar 🌿
But besides Plath’s metaphor, figs are just delicious fruits that have so much history and meaning. This newsletter includes not only fragments of fig-related matters but also a Q&A with Roya Shariat - author of Maman & Me & fig enthusiast.
As always, I hope you enjoy it. :)
📸 Fig Fotos 📸
IG: @therainbow_is_underestimated
Piero Percoco is a self-taught photographer from Bari, Italy. His work is mostly ontological exploration of his hometown.
IG: @fruitassembly
Fruit Assembly is an account that curates fruit photos daily. Click here for a fig post.
🍿 Cinema 🍿
Under The Fig Trees is a 2021 Tunisian coming-of-age drama film directed by Erige Sehiri. It follows a group of young women and men working the summer harvest as they develop feelings, flirt, and form deeper connections.
👩🏻💻 Articles 👩🏻💻
The New York Times: Italy to Brooklyn, Fig by Fig
Keap: Romancing the Fig: What One Fruit Can Tell Us About Love, Life, and Human Civilization
The New Yorker: Love The Fig
The Atlantic: Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Figs
💌 Q&A with Roya Shariat 💌
Roya Shariat is the head of social + impact at skin-care company Glossier, the author of the Iranian-American cookbook Maman & Me, and the ultimate fig-enthusiast.
💭 What's your favourite fig recipe, and how did you develop it? Figgy Toast is my absolute favourite (a close second is Ottolenghi's dark chocolate fig cake). I came up with it after I realized figs are quite jammy, and if you lightly top them on bread with peanut butter, it's the best PB&J you could ever make. Depending on how ripe/smushy the figs are, I might smash them lightly with the back of a spoon and add a little flaky maldon salt on top. It's the simplest thing, and I look forward to making it every single summer.
💭 Do you have any funny or interesting stories about figs? Figs are pretty hardcore — a special wasp has to die inside a fig in order for it to become a fruit. There's something morbid, scary, and beautiful about that process. It's a complete marvel, and I'm sure the general public takes that for granted when they take into a bite of a fig!
💭 Do you have any childhood memories or stories related to figs? I remember feeling confused by my parents' obsession with delicious figs every summer. I didn't understand what made them special, and I didn't have any interest in trying them. At one point, my Grandma was visiting from Iran and she made us pull over the car when she spotted a massive fig tree in someone's front yard. She got out and started picking figs — the people who lived there saw us, came out, and somehow we all became friends? It was a strange bonding experience, and then on a yearly basis we'd see them for figs and hang out. My parents have two fig trees in our backyard and each summer they bear fruit, and I love seeing my parents come out of the yard with a basket full of fresh figs. I love Figs so much I named my dog Fig.
💭 If you had to describe the taste of figs to someone who's never tried them, how would you do it? The sweetest, stickiest, softest jammy fruit there ever was. Like honey in fruit form.
💭 Do you have any tips or tricks for selecting the perfect ripe figs at the market? Touch them lightly, they should have some give — a little bounce. If they get smashed or the skin doesn't bounce back (it should feel supple), they're overripe. If they have no-give and feel firm, they aren't ripe yet, but can ripen in a few days on the counter.
💭 What's the most creative use of figs you've ever seen in a recipe or dish? There's a restaurant in Mexico City called Lardo that does a fig leaf ice cream topped with candied figs. I love the look of fig leaves but haven't figured out how to use them in the kitchen, and this incredible spot makes this herbaceous, gorgeous light green ice cream with them.
💭 Have you ever used figs in any unusual way in your cooking or baking? I'll sometimes just top figs with crumbled feta, sumac, and lemon/lime juice for a savoury + sweet snack.
💭 If you were hosting a fig-themed dinner/breakfast/brunch party, what kind of decor and ambience would you create to match the theme? Hmm. I would have gorgeous old illustrations of figs, Glossier's Fig Balm Dot Com as a party favour, fig leaves decorating the table in lieu of a table runner, and some fig-scented candles — I'm partial to Catbird's "Neighbor's Fig Tree."
🖋️ Poetry 🖋️
Jim Whiteside’s Poem: Figs
Naomi Shihab Nye’s Poem: My Father and The Fig Tree from 19 VARIETIES OF GAZELLE. Here’s an excerpt:
D.H. Lawrence’s Poem: Figs.
The poem describes the ways of eating figs, the secrecy of the fig, and the true delight of the fig within. He also draws a comparison between figs and women with the lines:
It was always a secret
That’s how it should be, the female is always a secret.
🗺️ Natural Oddities: The Upside-Down Fig Tree 🗺️
This isn’t the type of “facts” that aunties share on WhatsApp group chat. This is an actual fig tree in Bacoli, Italy. It still produces fruit. For a bit of historical background, click here.
📮 Stamps 📮
I’m currently working on an Instagram account called @bareed_archives. (bareed is Arabic for “postal”)
My dad has been a philatelist (stamp collector) since childhood. When I was younger, I never really understood why he did it and why he had such an immense passion for building a stamp library. Every day after work, he would sit at his desk and study the stamps he collected, organise them based on the year or country of origin, calculate their value…and repeat that every day. I always admired what he did, and it’s only recently that I’ve been intrigued by the history of each stamp. So while I’m working on the archive, I’ve asked him to find me a few fig stamps in his catalogue.
In his words, my photos “make his stamps look bad.”
📖 Academia 📖
In Shakespeare’s -tragedy - play Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra dies from a snake bite. The snake was concealed in a basket of fig trees - as seen on the bottom right in Reginald Arthur’s painting.
In some analysis of Adam & Eve’s story, it’s said that the forbidden fruit was a fig. Though not confirmed, Genesis 3:7 could imply to be so, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
The Island of Missing Trees is a the 12th by the British-Turkish writer Elif Shafak. It tells the story of Greek Cypriot Kostas and Turkish Cypriot Defne, their migration to London, and the impact their past has on their daughter Ada, whose only link to Cyprus is the fig tree in her backyard.
🪄 Memes & Tweets 🐣
Sylvia’s fig tree metaphor changed us all, but facts are facts.
