It’s fig season here.  Yielding small delectable sweet little treats fresh from the tree.  I had so many I couldn’t eat them all and wanted to preserve the few I had left.  I couldn’t find a good Roman recipe perserve to use so I went with some thing English.

Figee or Figgy

(Fig Paste)

Original: Figee. Nym figes, & boille hem in wyn; & bray hem in a mortar with lied bred; temper hit vp with goud wyn/ boille it/do thereto good spicere, & hole resons/ dresse hit/ florisshe it a-boue with pommegarnetes.

Translation:

Take figs, & boil them in wine, & bray them in a mortar with mixed bread; mix it up with good wine/ boil it/ put thereto good spicery, & whole raisins/ dress it/ garnish it above with pomegranates.

(Renfrow, pp. 168-169)

Ingredients:

9 figs (dried or fresh)

1 C wine          1 tsp dried ground spices i.e. cinnamon cardamom, nutmeg, lavender, black pepper.

2 slices dried toast (whole wheat is a personal preference)

Redaction:

Here I have all the ingredients lined up and ready to be cooked.

I boiled the figs in wine till tender and well juiced up with flavor.

The figs were pulled out of the wine, (leave the wine in the pot)  then ground with the toast (dried bread) into a thick paste.

The paste was then was put back over the fire with the wine from boiling.   Once the wine was added into the ground figs, the spices were added.

This doesn’t look appealing I know…the finished cooked paste makes up for the look.  Once the mixture had cooked well, raisons were added.

This is the point in which pomegranate seeds would be added for decoration (which are really needed as the general appearance is a bit…brown and gooey!)