When figs fry

There will be some of you reading this who will note the allusion to the wonderful show "When Pigs Fly," or indeed, the basic aphorism we all use for something rather unlikely to happen. Indeed, I thought it rather unlikely that I would ever fry figs - until I did it last night . And now, I want to do it again. And again. And again.

Figs are one of the foods where I let go of my rather rigid "Local only" standard, for a couple of reasons. One is, of course, that we love them. The second is that while there are fig trees in NYC, they are few and far between, and there is certainly not a commercial crop of them.

The scientist in me finds figs absolutely amazing. Want to trick someone: ask them to describe a fig flower. To see a fig flower, you have to cut open the fig. The fig fruits are what are apparently called "influorescences," meaning that the flower is actually contained INSIDE of the fruit. What we see is a structure that I believe is called the syncopium or something like that. But now, here comes the really interesting part. It's gonna gross some of you out. Deal with it.

In order for figs to propagate, i.e, form seeds, they of course need the help of insects. But if the flowers are inside the fruit, how does the insect get there? Well... look at the base of the fig. Look CAREFULLY. You'll see the tiniest of holes there, if you're careful. That's where a very small wasp goes in, and pollinates the flowers, and lays her eggs. Sometimes... yup, they hatch. And you'll get a fig that is maggoty. Sorry, but that's the way it is. And if you don't, get the maggots, yup, you are eating wasp eggs when you eat a fig. If that skeeves you, well, more figs for me. You wanna really get skeeved? Someday, read USDA regulations on how many insect body parts, etc, are permitted in things like canned tuna. You can go crazy worrying about this stuff. Just shut up and eat.

Fresh figs are really a treat. They are far from inexpensive, because they need to be shipped, carefully, and they do not ship well. Normally, we associate figs with late summer/early fall, which is when the main crop occurs; however, there is also a small early summer crop of figs, and if you are lucky enough to have a friend like Sandra, who will send you the goodies off of her tree, you can get them. And we did. Normally, we would be simply enjoying them out of hand, or perhaps cut into a salad, or, in one of my favorite things, sliced onto a sandwich with prosciutto. But we were having Keith's birthday dinner last night, and I wanted to try something a little unusual. Something I had read about years ago, and had my doubts about: I deep fried them.

I had read about fried figs in "The Zuni Cookbook" when it first came out. I remembered the idea of them, but had never done it. See, it just doesn't make sense to fry them for two people, and we just have never had a combination of people and enough figs at the same time to do it. But we did last night, and it was a really, REALLY good dish. I'm going to share it here, but I really urge you to get that cookbook. It looks frightening and imposing, but you will enjoy it immensely.

You'll need either buttermilk or yogurt (I used yogurt. If you use yogurt, thin it with a little milk to buttermilk thickness), and you'll need a bowl of flour. You'll also need a good three to four inches of oil in a deep pot, and some honey. Cut the tips off of the figs, and then cut the figs themselves in half, lengthwise. I let them sit in the yogurt for about an hour, although you can just dip them directly. When I was ready to fry them, I heated the oil to 365 degrees, while I dipped the fig halves into the plain flour (how do you know it's 365? I had a thermometer, but you could do something like mix a bit of flour and yogurt together and toss it in the oil. When it browns in about a minute, you're there. ) I fried between six and eight halves at a time, and it only took about two minutes to get them nice and brown. I moved them to a paper towel lined sheet to drain, and so that the fat could come back up to temperature again (it makes sense, if you think about it: you put something cold into something hot, the hot drops in temperature. DUH). When they were all done (in less than ten minutes), I put them on a plate, and drizzled lavender honey over them.

The frying brought out the natural sweetness of the figs, and it was like eating a very grown up version of a fig newton. Ain't nuthin wrong with that.

I will do this again. As it happens, I had made corn chips in some oil earlier for the party. That oil was very neutral in flavor, so I used that, and some fresh oil, and we were fine. Since 'tis the season of fried squash blossoms, I'm thinking a dinner where we start with fried - in the blossoms - and end with fried - the figs - may be in order. Hmmm. Some kind of palindromic dinner. I'm gonna have to work on that. Wheels, within wheels, within wheels, as some might say.