No self-respecting Italian-American owns without a fig tree on it. My paternal grandfather (a.k.a. “The Holy Terror”) kept a small, neat garden in the backyard of the brick two-family house he built in the Bronx for himself and his daughter’s household. Each winter, he shrouded the fig tree in several layers of oiled tarps to keep it alive.
Someone I know wrote a dissertation on Italian-American Use of Space. In addition to grottoes (usually containing a Virgin Mary), he also mentioned fig trees. Either is a dead giveaway.
The fig is an ancient fruit. The Babylonian goddess Ishtar once took on the form of the Divine Fig Tree. Buddha achieved enlightenment beneath the Bodhi (or fig) tree. The Bible lists figs as one of the seven species of the land of Canaan.
You can also wear fig leaves, as evidenced by most of the statues I saw in the Vatican.
One spring, while visiting my Aunt Dolores in the Bronx, I gravitated to the fig tree and snarfed down as many of the still-green fruits as I could eat. This resulted in a powerful stomachache, since they were unripe.
The Holy Terror also grew little pepper plants—terrifically hot—which he would liberally dose onto his food. If you are what you eat, what was he? I imagine a fig tree surrounded by flame.
Ada Boni’s Italian Regional Cooking includes a divine recipe for “Figs in Chocolate Sauce.” After being cooked and dipped in melted chocolate, the figs are dusted with powdered cloves. All other desserts might pale in comparison. (Take that, Twinkies!)
It occurs to me that the farther south you go in Italy, the more fabulous the food becomes—until, once you reach Sicily, you are in paradise. My paternal grandparents were an incompatible couple: the wife a northerner from Milan, the husband a southerner from Naples.
What did I keep at one end of my front lawn in Shirley? A cement foo dog. What does that make me? (Don’t answer that!)