Figs

These are figs—“The fruit of the fig-tree, a tree or bush which seems to have come originally from the East. It was certainly known in the very earliest times,” says my 1961 edition of Larousse Gastronomique, I think referring to the edible fruit’s history as one of mankind’s first cultivated plants, and possibly also the popularity of the strategically placed fig leaf in ancient arts and literatures. These figs, in particular, arrived in my kitchen via snail mail and a well-packed box sent by my mother along with tales of our neighbors’ fig orchard filled with bulbous fruit ripening simultaneously and in such quantity it nearly rained down from the trees.

I have lots of great recipes for figs. I used none of them. Because figs happen to be one of my most favorite things in this world. I ate these figs straight from the box moments after their arrival, stuffing one juicy fruit into my mouth after another in pure gluttony. They were so perfectly ripe and tender and lightly effervescent, nearly fermenting in their own skins during the two-day trip through the USPS. I didn’t really share them. I didn’t really even offer. I just bit in and savored every, beautiful, dripping bite.

Around the time these figs showed up last year, I was already dealing with figs. of a different kind. Sig. figs. to be exact, which is an abbreviation for significant figures, and which are the most obnoxious invention of the collegiate chemistry system to torture students who are already flailing their way through introduction chemistry and just. don’t. get. it. The idea is that significant figures determine a reasonable point at which to round off your data, which is likely some unwieldy decimal, produced from some fantastic calculation off some experiment that you still don’t quite understand. How to determine how many significant figures should be present,—or sig. figs. or SFS for super short— depends on how many decimal spaces were in your calculation, and whether you were multiplying or adding, and how many numbers your started with, and probably what you plan to name your first born child.

The important point is that on an introduction to chemistry final exam at the university level, you can do all the math correctly, figure out all the equations, and even include the correct, obscure units. But if you entered the wrong number of SFS in the final answer box of doom, you will get the whole flipping question incorrect. And I did. Over, and over again. While advanced electron mass spectrometry finally came into focus, this intricate system for divining how many numbers to stick on after the decimal point remained elusive. I did however come up with some pretty good acronyms for SFS in my frustrations including seriously feeling sad, super frustrating statistics, and stupid f***ing science. You may choose your favorite.

I took oceanography as an undergraduate. For a good reason. I believe I’ve mentioned before the difficulty I’ve had in returning to college to make up the science prerequisites that my own undergraduate education conveniently omitted. It’s been a test of intelligence, will power, and self-esteem. That’s pretty much all I did last year while entirely ignoring my blog, most of my social life, and good housekeeping habits—I did science, slogging my way through several rounds of chemistry prerequisites, GRE practice tests, and graduate school applications. And I’m sure it sounds like I’m exaggerating. In fact I hope it does, because that would be less embarrassing than the truth that daily, timed quizzes, advanced conceptual electron theory, and freshmen classmates who repeatedly said things like “you look old, what year are you?” never really felt any easier. Not to mention that sinking fear that if I didn’t snap the whole chemical schebang into focus for myself but quick, my dream would be dead.

So I cried. Kind of a lot. I didn’t eat very much either. And I went to a lot of tutoring sessions with teaching assistants who were younger than me, who didn’t get why I didn’t get it, and really needed to meet Jenny at swim practice and wanted to go to the dining hall first to grab some dinner with Susie and John, so could I just wrap up already, ok? By the time I’d clawed my way out of the academic gutter to get a grasp on the concepts being presented to me I was exhausted. I was studying more hours a day than I care to admit, at weird hours of both the morning and evening. And I even did things like read books about the brain to try to understand how mine worked, how I could possibly make it understand chemistry, and how to avoid inducing a stroke in the meantime.

So that brings us to here, I suppose, which is probably the moment where I should make sweeping promises of writing to this blog more consistently again now that chemistry has ended. But I assume even the most dedicated of my readers has shriveled up and died waiting for a post, so I’ll withhold sending any false hope into the abyss. It’s laughable that the last post on this blog until now was about the mouse that met his end in our Brookline kitchen nearly a year ago. Now we have pantry moths, who wants to hear about that adventure?!

But by here, I guess I also mean the current state of life and things in general, which are calmer, cheerier, and actually, by some miracle, more on the correct wavelength to absorb conceptual chemical theory. I still live in my same, humble and happy Brookline apartment and continue to work in the Boston University kitchen as a teaching assistant, stirring up fun most days with kids’ cooking classes. And I love it. I was also accepted into my first-choice graduate school program from which I will graduate in three years with a Master of Science in Nutrition and license to practice as a registered dietician.

And it’s almost fig season again here. Every time I try to describe the taste of a fig to someone, my account falls short. It’s juicy? I might suggest. “I’ve never had a fig that wasn’t dried,” one acquaintance ventured. “I’ve never had a fig that wasn’t in Newton form,” another friend proposed. Faced with the reputation of one of my favorite foods as reduced to that gritty filling to a rather ambiguous cookie, I tried so hard to elaborate on the unctuous texture of the fresh fig with its rough but paper-delicate skin, and fleshy inside, which tastes like flowers, and pears, and perfume, and like something else altogether. I’ve read other people’s descriptions of figs, hoping to glean a bit of their fruitful prose. But truthfully, I can’t find the taste in others’ writing either, and I’m startled even by the flavors they think the fruit has evoked, ever so subtly, on their own palates. The taste of the fresh fig belongs to the individual I suppose, more as a memory than an actual flavor. The fig, I think, might taste like happiness.

What great luck, and happiness, to have returned to Italy too this year, to take a picture again of my very favorite market stand in the heart of Venice.