An acquaintance of mine in Turkey told me about a tasty  "Brown Turkish" fig. Immediately, I presumed that he meant "Brown Turkey," but I could be wrong. 

Surely there are other brown/purple figs grown in Turkey that are different from the fig commonly known as "Brown Turkey" here, right? If this were a different fig than our "Brown Turkey," how would I be able to differentiate one from the other?

Brown Turkey is not from Turkey.  I believe the turkey in BT refers to the bird.  

Oh wow...Phil, I had no idea that Brown Turkey isn't from Turkey! Thanks! :)

Actually Phil, I've never heard that. I always thought the Turkey in Brown Turkey meant the country and not the tryptophan enriched bird. One of us is dead wrong. Time to find a wikipedia link or something!

That's nobody's business but the Turks'.

Turkey (the bird) is a native N. American bird. There are no native N. American figs. So, BT figs likely aren't named after the bird but rather the country of Turkey which has native figs. I have not seen a BT fig- I assume it is brownish in color?

I've heard its not from Turkey, figured someone named it here.  Anyone with good info on it?

Here's a little bit of light reading for those looking to see exactly how many strains of "Brown Turkey" they may have in their collection :)


HILGARDIA
A Journal of Agricultural Science Published by
the California Agricultural Experiment Station
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________
VOL. 23 FEBRUARY, 1955 No. 11
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________
FIG VARIETIES: A MONOGRAPH 1, 2 IRA J. CONDIT 3

http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/datastore/391-296.pdf

Page 425 describes Brown Turkey.
Page 467 describes San Piero.

Being a Portuguese speaker, I have to wonder if "Piero" was converted to "Peru", which sounds very similar. Peru means Turkey in Portuguese...

I would imagine those crafty B@$tards have populated everything but the Arctic, Antarctica, and Australia!
They do have them in Europe.

Rui...thanks...love TMBGs!  If anyone from this board made that video then fig cuttings would be what was taken, not a statue!

Rui- I woke up this morning humming this song :)

Just to add more flame to the fire...the UC Davis data on F4F states that Brown Turkeys figs are "originally from Provence in France" http://figs4fun.com/Info/Info_Brown_Turkey.html

So now we have England, France, and Turkey as possible suspects Any other thoughts? :)