Recently I was invited to dinner at the house of a new friend. They had bought the house a couple of years ago and now were turning their attention to their yard and starting a garden for the first time in their lives. They asked to look at their yard and see whether I thought the area they had selected was appropriate. It was dusk when we went out and there in the corner of the yard was a large fig tree completely kudzu'd over in Muscadine vines. When I asked her about her tree, the reaction was Fig tree? We have a fig tree? I love figs. The few leaves I could see were 3-lobed with ornately sculpted borders. I suggested that if she liked, I would return when the tree was dormant and help her liberate and trim the tree. Yesterday, 4 of us started on the liberation of the the tree and taming of the the grapes. When we finished we had a beautiful 20'-25' vase shaped tree free of all small suckers, crossed trunks and open to sunlight once again. I don't know what sort of tree this is but whatever it is, young growth is a lovely smooth chocolate brown color with small leaf scars. Brought home some cuttings to root. There is no ethnically interesting history to the house, so most probably the tree will turn out to be one of the pillars of the fig community in the SE, but who knows. Its a fig!
My friend had some fig brandy that a friend of hers from Panama had made and which we broke open in celebration. The concoction was stored in a mason jar with several Celeste sized fruits floating in the bottom. It was a smooth as a good Cognac with a slightly fruity and figgy taste. We are going to see if we can get her to share the recipe with us. We are now having visions of all the new mischief we can get into with figs next year.