Fruit of the Trees of Knowledge, Good & Evil

“I cannot think of a more-utilized product grown on the farm than the pecans. I am absolutely crazy for them; I use them in almost everything. I put them in breads; on salads; in pasta; on cheesecake; in a butter sauce over green beans; in a crust on fish. I make a killer Hoppin’ John each New Year, and it would be only half as good without my pecans. I make stuffed collards instead of cabbage, and I use pecans in the filling. I put pecans in my rice.” William A. Balk, Jr

Epicurus’ Porch

By William A. Balk, Jr.

BEAUFORT South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—10/28/2013—The figs this year were both more plentiful and much fatter and juicier than usual. Last year was a good year, too, but we had so many this year that it’s been hard to use them all before they started getting moldy. Ours are old-fashioned Brown Turkey figs, from a cutting shared by a long-ago neighbor; the tree now some 15 feet tall and 20 feet wide. A handsome tree, even had it never borne fruit, which is certainly not the case.

 

My nephew and his new bride want a fig tree for their new house in Charleston, so I’ve taken a couple of cuttings and have them rooting in pots by the back door. They seem to have set root, and I now watch as the new leaves emerge, bigger each day. The old tree will continue its life in slightly foreign soil, fruitfully bringing sweet pleasure to yet another family.

Recipes for fresh figs, especially milder-tasting varieties such as Brown Turkey, are sometimes hard to come by. My favorite fig recipe is for cake-like cookies filled with fig paste—sort of home-made Fig Newtons, only better—but this recipe, like so many others, calls for dried figs. I did find a recipe for a fig cake using fresh figs, which I tried. The result was an extremely dense, far-too-moist cake, the result of the very high proportion of water in fresh figs. I may try the recipe again, first cooking some of the water off the figs. I must say that, even considering the dubious texture and density of the original recipe, the resulting mush-cake did have fantastic taste. Now that the fresh fig season has ended, I’m encouraged to use dried figs once again in some new recipes.

There was a good crop of blueberries this year, as well. We have just a couple of bushes of several varieties; they’re early, mid-season, and late-producing, so we’re able to pick berries over a good long period. As with most of the fruit we grow, there’s the matter of how much we must share with the resident wildlife, but it usually works out pretty well. The blueberries go into breads, muffins, and pies; into jams and sauces; over ice-cream; into fruit salads. Some of the bounty we freeze in small packages and use all year, often in smoothie drinks.

I refuse to talk much about the pears this year.

The early spring-like weather brought them into full bloom only to be zapped by sudden frosts. Very few fruit on the trees survived that trauma, although, over the last few weeks, I did notice a couple of decent pears hanging from the branches. Even those very, very green pears have now been nibbled by the squirrels, found wanting, and thrown to the ground. So . . . not one pear this year.

It’s disappointing not to have the usual bushels of pears to work with. In the past, we’ve canned dozens of jars of them for winter use. Last year, I baked giant pies filled to overflowing with the pears, froze a couple, and all were very hungrily consumed. I’ll miss those pears this year. My old friend from grammar school days, Joan, has quite generously offered me the chance to gather as many pears as I want from her old Kiefer pear tree downtown. I may have to bake a couple of those huge over-filled pear pies I made last year and put them in the freezer for mid-winter ecstasy.

Basically, I used an apple pie recipe, substituting the pears; the pears get cooked down to rid them of moisture and, because they’re these hard pears, they still retain their sliced shape and some firmness. I use standard apple pie spicing, but I love to add a good dollop of Poire William liqueur to cook down with the other juices. A tablespoon or so of that wonderful pear liqueur in the liquid ingredients for the pie crust makes for a flakier crust, too.

I have a number of pie dishes but, for large festive pies, I like to use a wonderful stoneware dish that seems about twelve inches across—it’s huge! Depending on the pears, it takes most of a peck of fruit to over-fill to perfection.

Forget apples. That forlorn tree is coming down. Crabapples? Although there was a respectable crop of crabapples on the trees this year, those too have been pretty well decimated by the plum curculio worm. Those that escaped worm damage face depredation from the squirrels as they redden, so I don’t expect much. These crabapples do make the most scrumptious jelly, so I will regret not having any of them this year.

Ages ago, I got a couple of quince trees—the fruiting quince, Cydonia oblonga, not the flowering quince, Chaenomeles sp.—to see how they’d do here. Not so well, it turns out, although it may have to do with their having been mowed to the ground a couple of times and chewed to nubs by deer some seasons. But the fruit is reputedly so wonderfully fragrant, so amazingly delicious in jellies, I felt I should try. So those two struggling quince trees slowly add on a few inches each year, making a few flowers but no fruit. Eventually, perhaps, there will be quince jelly to share.

It’s still too early to know how the pecan trees will do. The years we have a bumper crop are joyous ones both for us and for the wildlife. There are two dozen pecan trees around the old farmhouse; the young ones have been here for half a century; the giants closest to the house, much longer. Some were planted for the quality of their nuts; some are seedlings of those more glamorous parents, sprung up where a foothold was found.

The very best of these pecans is the one in the field near the old cemetery in the pines. This big old tree spreads its handsome limbs nearly 50 feet across. Its nuts, however, are quite small—about the size of the last joint on my thumb—and quite hard-shelled. They’re not that easy to shell, but are absolutely packed with flavor. And this is one of those seedling trees, of mixed parentage, completely lacking in the carefully-bred-for characteristics of size and ease of shelling. A mongrel. and a prized tree, indeed.

I cannot think of a more-utilized product grown on the farm than the pecans. I am absolutely crazy for them; I use them in almost everything. I put them in breads; on salads; in pasta; on cheesecake; in a butter sauce over green beans; in a crust on fish. I make a killer Hoppin’ John each New Year, and it would be only half as good without my pecans. I make stuffed collards instead of cabbage, and I use pecans in the filling. I put pecans in my rice. If I’m serving ice cream, I toast and chop some pecans to sprinkle over it. I love my pecans!

There are two grape arbors with both muscadines and scuppernongs on them. The year before my father died, he was proudly watching over his developing crop of grapes. Each week, when I’d visit, I’d check on their progress, and we’d speculate about how much longer it’d be before they were ready to pick.

One weekend, I drove up to the farm and went over to the arbor for the grapes I was certain would be absolutely ready for picking. Not one grape on the vines! Not one! I went in to my father to ask when he’d picked them. He was quite surprised—he hadn’t picked them yet. Someone—someone—had crept up overnight and stolen every single muscadine. We spent the day trying to decide who could have been so rude.

I went home after the weekend, thought a great deal about this theft, and began to search the internet for clues. After a couple hours of aimless Googling, I came across photographs of a big deer that had been shot. In the process of dressing the deer, after making the cut to remove the viscera, one photo showed the contents of its gut: nearly a bushel of ripe muscadines: whole, purple and unmistakable.

Mystery solved; it was the deer that had consumed every one of my father’s prized grapes in the space of one night. If it ain’t the squirrels, it’s the deer. Nothing is safe in the country.

There certainly was no muscadine wine made at our house that year.

Recipe

Newtonian Fig Cookies

Dough: 

Wet Ingredients:

1/3 cup vegetable shortening

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour (or all-purpose flour)

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon grated orange peel

pinch of salt

 

Fig Filling:

1 (8oz) package dried figs, stems removed

2/3 cup water

Zest of one lemon or orange (or 3 Tablespoons juice of lemon or orange)

1 stick cinnamon

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

Egg wash

In a large bowl, cream together shortening, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth. Add all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder, orange peel, and salt, beating until blended. Refrigerate dough at least 1 hour.

Prepare Fig Filling: In a medium saucepan, combine figs, water, lemon or orange peel, and granulated sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer 5 to 10 minutes or until thickened, stirring occasionally. Cool and set aside. When cooled, first remove zest and cinnamon; pour figs and juices into bowl of a food processor. Purée and set aside.

To fill and bake cookies, preheat oven to 375F (190C). Grease baking sheets. On a floured surface, roll dough into a 14-inch square. Cut dough into 4 equal strips, each 14 inches long and 3 1/2 inches wide. Return to refrigerator for 15 or 20 minutes.

Fill a pastry bag with the filling, using a large round tip. Retrieve the cooled, firm strips from the refrigerator; squeeze a full, plump stripe of Fig Filling down the center of each strip, using ¼ of the total amount for each strip. With a pastry brush, paint one side of each strip with egg wash to help seal the cookie when folded over itself. Using a long spatula, lift sides of each dough strip over filling, overlapping slightly on top. Press edges together to seal. Cut strips crosswise in half for ease in handling. Place, seam-side down, 3 inches apart on parchment-covered  baking sheets. Brush off any excess flour. Cut each strip into 7 (1-inch) crosswise pieces, but do not separate. Bake 13 to 15 minutes or until puffed and firm to the touch. Cool 5 to 10 minutes on baking sheets; then cut apart and remove to racks to cool completely. Makes about 56 (2” x 1”) cookies.

Note: The image of figs derives from http://www.endlesssimmer.com/2012/09/05/put-it-in-a-jar-fig-jam/; that of Southern pecan trees, from http://msfruitextension.wordpress.com/category/pecans/.

Note: This essay was adapted from a column Will wrote for Lowcountry Weekly: Reflections on the good life in coastal South Carolina (http://www.lcweekly.com/), where he serves as a regular contributor.