A perfect season for figs in Sonoma County
California’s fall fig season is upon us, and like the peach and apricot season of early summer, it is deliciously short and sweet.
Believed to have originated in the alluvial soils of Mesopotamia, fig trees are well adapted to the Mediterranean climate of California and can claim the honor of being the only fruits to fully ripen on the tree. Once the harvest kicks into gear, you need to act fast, because this tender, luscious and most seductive of fruits will only last a few, fleeting days before going from perfect ripeness to utter devastation.
“Once they come in, people are inundated with them,” said Sondra Bernstein, owner of The Girl & the Fig restaurant in Sonoma and The Fig Cafe in Glen Ellen. “And once they are picked, they don’t continue to ripen, but they continue the process of breaking down.”
If you’ve got your own tree - which is probably the best and cheapest way to get your hands on fresh figs - that means exercising extreme patience until each fig has turned color, is soft to the touch and easily plucked. Perhaps that extra waiting makes the fruit taste even sweeter.
A fig is actually a flower that has inverted into itself, with soft skin, velvety flesh and crunchy seeds that are the real fruit. Once you bite into your first, there is no going back. Many believe the ancient fig was actually the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden, for good reason.
Bernstein, whose Girl & the Fig restaurant recently celebrated its 19th anniversary, is offering a world of figgy pleasures to diners this month, with the help of Executive Chef John Toulze and his new Chef de Cuisine, Matt Spector, formerly of JoLe in Calistoga.
How many ways do these Sonoma Valley chefs love to serve figs? Start with their signature Grilled Fig & Arugula Salad, studded with pancetta and pecans. Then move to the Fig & Thyme Crisp topped with ice cream, a warm and comforting fig bar reminiscent of Grandma’s treats, only better.
Then move on to the fig cocktails and after-dinner quaffs made with local products, such as the Figcello di Sonoma and the Fig’n’Awesome Grappa from Sonoma Portworks.
Let’s just say that between the savory and sweet dishes, in-house jams and the cocktails, there are never enough figs to fulfill their needs. And once they lay their hands on them, they treat the precious fruits like royalty.
“What I like about them is that they go with anything, savory or sweet,” Spector said. “We separate them and lay them out on a linen napkin.”
When figs are in season, Bernstein puts out an e-mail blast to friends and neighbors in the Sonoma Valley, asking them to bring their fresh figs to the kitchen door in exchange for gift certificates.
“Sondra puts out the APB (all points bulletin), and our neighbors show up with figs,” said Spector, who recently served a “trio” of three different grilled figs - Black Mission, Kadota and Brown Turkey - in three savory preparations. The “secret” appetizer is not on the menu, but when figs are in season, it’s always offered as a special.
“We didn’t want to be like Alice Waters and just serve a fig on the plate,” Bernstein said. “It’s fun to let the chef do a fig plate like our wine flight.”
For the home cook, grilled figs can make for amazingly easy and delicious appetizers when paired simply with a few of their favorite companions: blue cheese and nuts, salty meats like bacon or prosciutto, or fresh cheeses like fromage blanc or ricotta.
If, for some reason, your figs grow too soft in their quick march toward decay, Spector suggests turning them into a simple fig jam, which he makes as the filling for the restaurant’s Warm Fig & Thyme Crisp.
Bernstein and her crew have been ahead of the curve - at least in America - in appreciating the fruit’s many charms for the past two decades, elevating the lowly fig to its rightful place in the sun.
According to longtime fig farmer Kevin Herman of Madera, the demand for fresh figs has risen sharply in the past five years as consumers trade in the dried variety for the more alluring fresh kind.
“Five years ago, 90 percent of our figs went to the dryer and only 10 percent were sold fresh,” Herman told the Sacramento Bee earlier this summer. “Now it’s 80-20. We’re selling a lot more fresh.”
In other words, Americans are catching on that there is more to figs than that childhood classic, the Fig Newton.
“People are surprised that they are a ripe fruit, not dried in a bag,” Spector said. “And there is more than the Black Mission Fig. They are all different.”
The following recipes are from The Girl & the Fig. For more recipes, stop by the restaurant in Sonoma and pick up the first edition of #figchronicles, a newsprint newsletter that Bernstein publishes on an occasional basis.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: