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| For the Love of Figs |
| In an excerpt from her new book, writer Julia Reed celebrates one of the South's most treasured fruits |
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A New Orleans resident for more than a decade, Julia Reed channels her gift for entertaining into fundraising and celebrations of the South.
(Photo: Courtesy of St. Martin's Press) |
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by Julia Reed
We’ve always loved Greenville, Mississippi, native and Southern writer Julia Reed for her wit and style. She’s a contributing editor at Vogue and has written for this magazine for more than 10 years. But we’ve also learned along the way that Reed has a way with cooking and entertaining. She takes tried-and-true Southern recipes -- those she learned from her mother, neighbors, friends, and culinary icons -- and gives them a fresh spin, presenting them in such a way that we all wonder why we haven’t been canning and preserving, mixing potent cocktails, and generally getting into the kitchen every evening. With her new cookbook, Reed culls recipes and essays from columns she wrote for The New York Times and adds a few notes and tweaks to inspire us all anew. This excerpt, from the chapter “Giving a Fig,” and the recipes that follow remind us of the many reasons there are to love this Southern delicacy.
My friend George Peterkin Jr. is fig obsessed. He lives in Houston and travels all the time, but from mid-June until mid-July when the figs are ripe on his trees, he refuses to leave them. He can’t. For one thing, somebody has to shoot the squirrels when they get after them. (The birds are less of a problem. A pair of territorial mockingbirds keep the other birds away, and George estimates that they can only eat “maximum five percent” of the crop by themselves. “I love those mockingbirds,” he says.) Also, the more than fifty people on his fig list would be extremely upset. George has 14 fig trees -- 13 Celeste and one LSU Purple, a new variety, developed by Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, that George does not recommend. (“They have no taste.”) These trees put out a lot of figs; he spends as much as two or three hours a day picking them, collecting the good ones in baskets and tossing the ones that have “bloomed out” (the fig’s fruit is also its flower) into his neighbor’s yard. The bulk of them are then divided into brown paper bags that are picked up by or delivered to the lucky folks on the list, a diverse group that includes former Republican Secretary of State and Treasury Secretary James Baker, and, until he died, the former Democratic Senator, candidate for vice president, and Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen.
| FIG AND ALMOND TART |
Yield: 8 servings
(Adapted from Patricia Wells at Home in Provence) Crust:
Softened butter for greasing pan
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon almond extract
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
1 1/4 cups, plus 1 tablespoon, unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons ground unblanched almonds
Filling:
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons raw full-flavored honey, such as lavender
1 tablespoon superfine flour, such as Wondra
1 1/2 pounds fresh figs, halved lengthwise (don’t peel)
Confectioners’ sugar 1. Preheat oven to 375°. Butter sides and bottom of a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom or a springform pan, and set aside.
2. For the crust: In a large bowl, combine melted butter and sugar, and blend with a wooden spoon. Add extracts, salt, and flour, and stir to form a soft, cookielike dough. Do not let it form into a ball. Transfer the dough to the center of the tart pan. Using your fingers, press the dough evenly onto the bottom and sides. (It will be quite thin.) If using a springform pan, press the dough 1 1/2 inches up the sides. Bake until the dough is slightly puffy and set, about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle almonds on the crust.
3. For the filling: In a medium bowl, combine the cream, egg, extracts, and honey, and whisk to blend. Whisk in the flour. Starting just inside the edge of the tart shell, neatly overlap the figs, cut side up, at a slight angle. Make two or three concentric circles, working toward the center, and fill the center with the remaining figs.
4. Rewhisk the cream mixture and pour evenly over the fruit. Place the tart in the center of the oven with a baking sheet on the rack below to catch any drips. Bake until the filling is firm and the pastry a deep golden brown, about 50 to 60 minutes. Remove and sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar just before serving.
Note: Unpeeled apricots or plums may be substituted for figs. |
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