Thank you for reminding me about plums. I was just in a supermarket getting some supplies and lunch, and bought myself four plums. I have already eaten two and nom nom nom.
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I actually kinda like both prunes and plums equally. Theyāre very different and so hit different needs.
Fresh dates are fucking weird. Dates and figs are the two fruits that I adamantly prefer in dried form.
I love the fig so much, I can even the the raw. But because of its immense power, I canāt eat an entire raw fig. Since they are so expensive, it is wasteful, so I donāt do that. Luckily, a fig is equally delicious in all of its forms.
We have a single massive fig tree, which produces more figs than I know what to do with, but not quite enough to sell. Maybe I should get a dehydrator? At peak fig we get 2-5 pounds of ripe ones a day. I can only eat so much fresh fig, fig jam, flat breads, and ice cream. Other suggestions welcome.
Maybe this year Iāll give 5-10 lbs to each of my home brewer friends and have a competition.
Are there fig wasps?
Thereās a fig tree at my nonnaās house in queens. I find raw figs delicious as all hell BUT I donāt like dealing with them I find them sticky and hard to cut so often I donāt find it worth the effort to walk into the garden and pick a few and get them into edible form.
Nope, at least Iāve never seen one, I get the impression that theyāre not common around here outside of tree farms.
How does the fig tree do its fig thing without the fig wasp?
I grew up on a small farm, and when I was younger we had amazing wild blackberry vines that grew on the fence line in the back of the property. Ever summer around this time me and my mom would each fill a five gallon bucket with berries the size the the last segment of your thumb. Then one year the cows found them and ate all the vines, no more blackberriesā¦ I donāt how much of it is nostalgia and how much is that I became accustomed to the freshest possible berries, but itās been over a decade and I still havenāt had a blackberry half as good as those I remember.
Since the āfruitā is part of the flower it doesnāt need to be pollinated to do itās thing. In some places thereās enough of a density of trees that the wasps might randomly show up, but I donāt live anywhere near a tree farm so that would be a rare event. Plus thereās a pretty good chance that itās a female tree, so a stray wasp wouldnāt turn into more.
The ones off my tree are really good. Not overly sweet, thin skinned and small enough that you can pop the whole thing in your mouth. I just get way too many.
āother suggestionsā
Send them to me and I will rid you of your fig problem.
Also, yes, get a dehydrator.
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I thought if there was some part of a wasp in the fruit theyāre microscopic and not noticeable.
As veganistic debates go, that is a damn reasonable one. I can really see both sides.
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Is there really much of an ethical dilemma if the wasp ends up there naturally? Although I guess that only strictly applies to wild figs, with no human intervention at all.
That makes sense. There are definitely times where Iāve removed meat from a dish and it ended up getting thrown out, where eating it wouldnāt have been any worse from an animal cruelty/sustainability/whatever perspective.
I guess those vegans who have a problem with it are not aware that there are bug parts in pretty much everything?
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As a vegan, I learned that a bit ago. Iām unsure if thatās common knowledge among vegans though. Thereās a standard for how many bugs can be in almost everything, like rice or spices.
Respect to the dried fruit. Dried Cranberry is great for salads, cookies, snacking, and even cole slaw. Forget raisins, step your game up with dried blueberries and cranberries.
It seems to me that with the figs if the bug is already dead by a natural process itās really not animal cruelty or exploitation.