The Louisiana Fig

There are many trees that you will find in the Louisiana landscape. Among those would be the Oak, Magnolia, Cypress, Pine, etc. but the tree that I think of most is this one:



The Fig Tree!

If you were a child in my family, summertime meant picking figs. While all of my friends were sleeping late, my mother would wake us up at 5:00AM to go and pick figs. My mother knew nothing of the child labor laws. She would scout out who had the best fig trees and would often get first dibs on the best figs around. We would go to Miss Labbe's (one of my mother's beauty shop customers) and Mr. Eddie Arceneaux (my mother's cousin). They both lived about 2 miles from our house in Bosco!

To prepare for an early morning of fig picking, the first thing that you had to do was dress properly which meant wearing a long, sleeved shirt and jeans. Imagine wearing a long, sleeved shirt in the hot, humid, summer weather of Louisiana. Even at 5:00AM, it was still hot, sticky and very uncomfortable. We would pack up my dad's Dodge pick-up truck with the ladder and buckets then away we went.

My brothers' job (I only remember my brother Troy coming with us) would be to climb the ladder and shake the tree branches so that we (the girls) could pick up the figs that fell to the ground.

If being up at 5:00AM dressed for winter in the middle of the Louisiana summer wasn't bad enough, imagine having to see these hanging in the tree:



The Banana Spider! They are huge and nasty and love to make their home in the fig tree! I would try my best to stay as far away from those creatures as possible.

Our fig picking adventure was usually over by 8:00AM! We would load our buckets and ladder back in the truck and head back home with tons of figs.



My mother would then begin the process of canning figs. This is the end product:



As a child, I didn't understand why it was so important for us to pick figs but now that I am an adult and live away from Louisiana, I understand the importance. I just can't go and buy fig preserves at my local Family Fare grocery store. And if they did sell it, I'm sure that it wouldn't taste like Mildred's (my moma)and would probably cost a fortune.

For those of you who have never heard of fig preserves, it's similar to the inside of a fig newton but better!

Fig preserves are great on biscuits or toast and nothing taste better than a fresh fig cake. My moma's friend Miss Barriel always made the best fig cake. Here is her recipe:

Miss Barriel's Fig Cake

1 Cup Vegetable Oil
2 Cups Sugar
2 Eggs
2 Cups Flour
1/2 t Salt
1 t Cinnamon
1 t Nutmeg
1 t Soda
2 Cups Figs
1 Cup Buttermilk
1 Cup Chopped Pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream vegetable oil and sugar. Add eggs. In another bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients. Add to the oil and sugar mixture alternately with buttermilk. Mix well. Add figs and pecans. Pour into a greased bundt or tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until a knife inserted comes out clean.