History of the fig

Answer 1

Figs likely originated in southern Arabia. They have been cultivated for thousands of years: remnants of figs having been found in excavations of Neolithic sites traced to at least 5,000 BC. Sumerians and Assyrians were familiar with them. Figs spread slowly through Asia Minor and Syria to Mesopotamia, where they were likely first cultivated. They spread to Persia, and became highly developed in Armenia and Afghanistan. Figs spread to Egypt, then ancient Crete.

Around the 9th century BC, figs arrived in ancient Greece, where they became a staple in the traditional diet. Figs were so important to the Greeks that they created laws forbidding the export of the best-quality figs.

The Phoenicians and the Greeks spread fig cultivation throughout the Old World, resulting in the introduction of figs along the African coast, Spain, Portugal and Italy. In ancient Rome, they were revered as a sacred fruit. According to Roman myth, the wolf that nurtured the twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, rested under a fig tree. Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79) was aware of at least 29 varieties of figs. As time went on, figs were cultivated from Afghanistan to southern Germany and the Canary Islands.

India first cultivated figs in the 14th century and edible native varieties still grow in the Punjab hills. The first report of figs in China was in the 14th century as well.

Figs were first introduced to the West Indies in 1520 and to Peru in 1528 by Spanish and Portuguese missionaries. From the West Indies, figs quickly spread across southeastern North America. Figs arrived in England by 1548. By 1550, they were growing in Chinese gardens. European varieties were taken to China, Japan, India, South Africa, and Australia. Figs from the West Indies were planted at Spanish missions in Mexico in 1560.

Figs reached Virginia in 1669. From Virginia, they spread to the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Fig trees were planted in Bermuda in early times and were common around Bahamian plantations in Colonial days. They became a familiar garden plants in the West Indies, and at medium and low altitudes in Central America and northern South America.

Figs spread from Mexico to California with the Franciscan missionaries who planted them in the mission gardens at San Diego in 1769 and up the Pacific coast to Santa Clara by 1792, Ventura by 1793, and later on to Sonoma, giving the name Mission to those first dark purple California figs. Later, California orchards received many special varieties from Europe and the eastern United States.

Settlers brought a wide variety of plants to California during the Gold Rush, and by 1867 there were over 1,000 acres of fig trees in the Sacramento Valley and 35 acres in the San Joaquin Valley. The Smyrna fig was brought to California's San Joaquin Valley from Turkey in 1882. The most popular variety, the White Adriatic fig, was planted in a 27-acre orchard in Fresno as early as 1885, and produced the first carload of dried figs shipped by rail to the east in 1889.

In 1891, James Henry Mitchell invented a machine which worked like a funnel within a funnel. The outside funnel pumped out a hose of dough, while the inside funnel filled the hose, which was then cut into smaller pieces. That same year, Charles M. Roser created a recipe for a pastry filled with fig jam, and sold the recipe to the Kennedy Biscuit Works (later called Nabisco). Later that year, the Kennedy Biscuit Works used Mitchell's invention to mass-produce Roser's recipe. Kennedy Biscuits had a tradition of naming cookies and crackers after the surrounding towns near Boston, the home of Kennedy Biscuits. The cookies were named after the Massachusetts town of Newton.

The White Adriatic remained popular until the 20th century, but its quality when dried was inferior to imported figs, leading to the introduction of the Lob Injir variety of Smyrna fig. This new introduction grew and produced fruit, but it all dropped by early summer, never maturing and ripening. In 1890 George Christian Roeding demonstrated that in order to set fruit, the Smyrna figs needed to be pollinated by hanging male flowering caprifig branches in the Smyrna fig trees to facilitate pollen transfer by a fig wasp. Caprifigs imported by Walter Tennyson Swingle from Asia Minor, Smyrna, Mexico, Greece, and Algeria resulted in the successful introduction of the specific blastophaga (fig) wasp needed for pollinating the Smyrna figs. The California commercial fig industry was born on June 23, 1899, and the golden-brown Smyrna fig was renamed Calimyrna in honor of its new homeland.

Jesse Clayton Forkner purchased 6,000 acres near Fresno and planted figs in 1910, blasting holes through the hardpan with dynamite so that tree roots could get through to the deep soil beneath. Forkner subdivided and sold this land so that people could own a fig orchard, build a home, and be prosperous on an average holding of 16 acres per owner. About at that time, fig orchards covered much of the area that is within today's city limits of Fresno. By 1931, California had 57,278 acres of figs, with virtually all of it located in the central San Joaquin Valley.

In Venezuela, figs are in great demand by fruit processors. Because of the inadequate supply, a program was launched in 1960 to encourage commercial plantings. The Colombian Agricultural Institute realized that fig growing should be encouraged and established an experimental plantation in 1973. By 1976, fresh figs were regarded as highly desirable luxuries in Colombia. The results of the experimental plantings were so favorable that the Institute circulated an advisory bulletin to farmers in 1977, including improved methods of cultivation, costs of production, and potential revenue.