On the kitchen table today… last of the season’s figs – backyard grown by an older Italian fellow nearby. (No, I didn’t pilfer them, 😄 he sells them to our local fruit shop). However, talking of figs, it did make me think of Nonno Anni taking those ones from the cemetery…
“During a trip back to Fossa, Nonno Anni and a friend were out walking one day when they came to a grassy clearing and a fig tree laden with fruit. Instinctively, Nonno Anni went towards it, struck by mouth-watering excitement but his friend pulled him back.
‘You can’t eat those! This used to be a cemetery. The roots of that fig tree…’ his voice lowered, ‘plunges into graves.’
Nonno Anni knew it was the old cemetery, his grandparents were buried there. The cemetery had been used and reused so much over the centuries that in times past, after fifty years, the bones would be dug up and placed in an osso sala or bone room so the graves could be reused. Not wanting to upset his friend, or cause a scandal, Nonno Anni refrained, but those luscious plump figs stayed in his mind.
He executed his stealth mission, solo. The next day, when most people were at work or shopping, he carried a bag, his step jaunty, out for an innocent morning walk… Concealed in the bag was a basket. When he came to the heavily laden tree, he first tasted the figs. They were spectacular. The tree hadn’t been touched for years and gave up its load with particular sweetness. Nonno Anni was still kissing his fingers to his lips at their deliciousness as he told me thirty years later. ‘The best figs I ever tasted.’
He filled the basket, hid it inside the dark bag and nonchalantly walked back into the village. His step was indeed even jauntier. Nonno Anni didn’t take the usual lane up to the house, he took the lower, darker route, threading through twisting, tunnelled walkways to get to his stalla. Inside the stable, the air is cool and dry, perfect to store fruit. He didn’t tell anyone at the time but occasionally, he’d steal away to have a fig or five. I’m sure that they were clandestine made them all the sweeter.”
Adapted from, Mezza Italiana
Usually we end up eating most of these picked straight from the tree in the backyard but perhaps this year some might last long enough to cook with…
Zoë Boccabella 