"Shape is a good part of the fig's delight." Jane Grigson
The pendulous figs hanging from the gnarled tree in our backyard had finally ripened to the point of splitting. I'd watched them for months, (an eternity through my young eyes), from tiny green buds expanding into bulbous blackberry-hued balloons, waiting as patiently as I could to harvest their dark, exotic essence. This process was painstakingly symbolic of how, by the end of summer, I too felt like I could burst open or boil over. The scaldingly hot, sticky summers of southern Louisiana would have started to feel merciless. My skin was a deep golden-orange hue and my hair a shock of dry flaxen straw.
If I wasn’t hiding submerged up to my eyeballs like an alligator in the cool, turquoise chlorine bath of the local swimming pool, I was shuffling around looking for trouble or what I called fun. Summers days were spent outside, starting immediately after breakfast, and our job as kids was to entertain ourselves and remain outside at all cost. In June we felt like we'd never get enough time to play but by the end of the summer we were sated, crispy and bored and starting to terrorize the neighborhood like a band of wild banshees.
Along with Louisiana heat came sudden, violent, summer downpours. One moment we'd be dripping sweat, feeling like our brains might explode in our skull like Jiffy Pop and fabricating fake injuries, illnesses and excuses to retreat inside where the grown-ups mingled in the cool, conditioned air. Then lightning would flash across the sky and the heavens would break open dumping barrels of water upon us. A moment later, the downpour would cease, the sun would part the clouds, and start to soak up the water like a huge, hungry sponge.
With downpours come flash floods, cars careening into the ditches of our corner lot and many confused hermaphroditic megadriles, more commonly known as earthworms. I often observed them squiggling on the sidewalk after a rain, catching their wormy breath, just barely having avoided drowning. Then I would watch as the brilliant sun baked them onto the sidewalk in curlicues like fried onion rings on a gray porous skillet.
That same cruel heat that fried earthworms and burned our bare feet as we hopped across the street from house-to-house also brought with it sugary redemption in the form of luscious, fruity carnage. Fuzzy dripping full peaches whose juices would run down our (oft’ dirt-streaked) decolletages as we bit them, blackberries we tried to maneuver from their thorny vined cages that stained our grubby fingers deep purple and the fruity crescendo of summer... bursting, splitting ripe figs.
In August we became warriors in a strategic battle against the birds, trying to determine would get the most fruit and we weren’t above using tree nets, aluminum pans and slingshots armed with pebbles to keep our prizes. We'd lie-in-wait with our ammunition, just around the corner for our feathered enemies to near.
Figs were the crowning glory of our summer harvest. They were my father’s favorite fruit and each year when they ripened, we'd harvest them gingerly from the tired, laden, branch-bent tree, treating them like precious silken purses. We’d wait until they easily slipped off the tree with only the slightest pull and slowly savor them one at a time, stretching out the pleasure. We'd gorge on them until we were almost ill, and the rest was reserved for pies, cobblers, tarts, jams, jellies and preserves. Fig season was fleeting but our tree was extremely prolific and as seasons were so perfectly designed, we’d get our fill before they’d completely disappear for another entire year.
Figgy Fantasia
"You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made,' [Chef Bugnard] said. 'Even after you eat it, it stays with you - always." — Julia Child (My Life in France)
As an adult, I discovered many new ways to eat figs but one in particular, an adult ice cream made an impression. It was a hot scalding day spent drifting around my parent's pool with a group of friends. My folks were on vacation and my job was to hold down the forte, attend all my classes and beat the merciless heat that was upon us.
I got out of the pool to sun myself and read the food section of the local paper. Marcelle Bienvenu, a famous Cajun food writer and, (to this day), one of my personal (s)heros, had published a Fig Grand Marnier Ice Cream recipe. I read it out loud to my friends and one of them mentioned his tree at home was laden with ripe, untouched figs.
In a flash we'd raided my parent's liquor cabinet, found an old crank ice cream maker in the garage, hit the store for milk, ice and rock salt and denuded Daniel's tree, all whist still damp in our swimsuits.
We peeled (still years later trying to grasp this concept), and marinated the figs in the heady orange liqueur and cooked the concoction on the stove. Poured the mixture into the container, added layers of ice and salt and took turns cranking. We’d hop up on the side of the pool one-at-a-time and turn the squeaky crank handle while the water from our suit bottoms was sucked into the hot porous cement underneath.
After what seemed like hours, (I now know alcohol makes ice cream take much longer to freeze!), the cranking became difficult and we raised the lid to discover a huge frozen glob of ice cream, the consistency of soft-serve!
I excitedly tracked wet footsteps on the brick floors inside to grab a handful of spoons and we dangled in the cool pool, propped up on our elbows and took turns scooping out bites from the frosted metal cylinder.
It was pure boozy, figgy, deliciousness that intoxicated our taste buds. We got high savoring the frozen creamy fruit of our labor and laid on our rafts to float in the cool water all blissed-out in sugary liqueured comas.
Lead Belly Ice Cream
"Fat gives things flavor." — Julia Child(....well, perhaps not always Julia :)
A decade later, I met Sarah, my new food-writing editor, at a classical music luncheon at the planetarium. She'd sounded direct and determined, a huge presence on the phone, and when the bespectacled, petite redhead standing all of five feet approached me with her too-large floppy sun hat and quizzical smile, I was briefly taken aback. She was not only smart but almost magical and a person I longed to impress.
We began sharing stories and somehow my figgy tale unearthed and we became determined to make more of Marcel's fig ice cream. But her recipe wasn't available so I haphazardly grabbed another I found online and we set off.
We drove to our farm and precariously negotiated ladders to pick the fruit. This recipe didn’t require we soak the figs as Marcel’s recipe and it involved lots of heavy cream.
We cooked the figs for what seemed an eternity while Sarah’s freezer hummed along in the background. It was a dark new-moon night and we brewed stout black coffee kept us awake. The mesmerizing chop, chop, chop of her ceiling fan was tempting us to lower our eyelids but her husband Charlie and daughter Hannah kept us awake by popping their heads in looking for a treat.
When the motor finally slowed to a low growl; we unplugged it and peered in. The color was more yellow than I remembered and the ice cream was much denser than the soft-serve I remembered. I dug out the first spoon-bending bite, (the consistency of Play-Doh), and still blindly hopeful, put it in my mouth.
Instantly my tongue became wrapped in what felt like a fuzzy cocoon. Rather than slurpy, figgy, boozy bliss, the ball of dense sweet emulsion melted in my mouth and its sickly taste, that of pure hollow fat, clung to my tongue. “Well?” asked Sarah in a very optimistically tone. I slowly turned toward her and announced, “I’m not quite sure how but we just spent hours creating what I can only call Lead Belly Ice Cream.”
I discouraged her from trying it, my reputation as a foodie and the figgy legend sorely on the line, but she was so curious and impossible to dissuade. I watched her face as she took a bite. She tried to be kind but there was no nice way around this elephant -- it was a disaster. I remember adding a spoonful to my coffee, thinking it might serve as creamer but all it did was ruin a perfectly good cup of coffee.
Too frugal to throw it away, we put it in our freezers where it sat for months. In attempting to recreate a perfect memory and impress my editor, I'd ultimately churned one of my top culinary disasters. Luckily she kept giving me assignments and didn't assume my whole culinary career was a sham but to this day I cannot fully erase that cloying, laden taste from my pallet. Nor can I erase the lore that was spawned that night.
Legends that make and break us.
Kitchen disasters grow in the south in legendary fashion. There's Potatoes Au Rotten, Horribly Salty Banana Ice Cream, Sunken Souffle, the multi-colored layer cake that set off all the fire alarms at four a.m., and Burnt Beet Night to name a few. And as much as my friends love to eat, they love to laugh. The worst stories become the best jokes and Sarah has been recounting the legend of Lead Belly Ice Cream ever since.
Recently, like a Hydra, this story raised its head on facebook and I decided to own it once and for all. Meanwhile searched for Marcelle’s original recipe and miraculously, found it!
Figs are here in Ventura County for a brief window of time. While writing this, I procured some and asked online if anyone had an ice cream maker. Within minutes Charlie (from that fated evening) chimed in, "You're not making fig ice cream, I hope."
Well I am, but the real one again, not its lead-belly brethren and here it is Sarah & Charlie, Marcelle's original recipe should you dare to join me. If I thought you'd fly in, I'd put on a pot of coffee right now!
Marcelle Bienvenu’s Fig & Grand Marnier Ice Cream
Makes about 1 1/2 quarts
1 quart of ripe figs, peeled and mashed
1/2 cup of Grand Marnier
6 large eggs, lightly beaten
4 cups of milk
1 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract
Combine the figs and Grand Marnier in a bowl and set aside.
In a large, heavy, non-reactive saucepan, combine the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla over medium heat and whisk to dissolve sugar. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring constantly, reduce heat to medium-low. Continue stirring until the mixture thickens enough to coat a wooden spoon.
Remove from heat and let cool for about 10 minutes. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled.
Add the fig mixture and stir to mix. Pour the mixture into an ice cream freezer and freeze according to the manufacturer's directions.
