Fabled Fig

Photo by Liz Birnbaum, The Curated Feast for Ten Speed Press

If there’s ever been a fruit with a good story to tell, it would be the fabled fig.

The BBC calls it “the tree that shaped human history.” This is the tree under which the Buddha sat and attained enlightenment. It is a symbol of power and prayer, sin and modesty.

But did you also know that botanically the fig is not a fruit in the way something like an apple, peach, or even a tomato is? The fig itself is actually bundle of sealed flowers facing inward — which is, technically speaking, called a syconium.

And thank you to whoever wrote this on Wikipedia, but the synconium is “an enlarged, fleshy, hollow receptacle with multiple ovaries on the inside surface.”

These beautiful and honey-sweet fruits also whisper strange tales of co-evolutionary relationships with miniature wasps, and of grand migratory and trade routes around the globe. Happy fig season, everyone!