Back in Sicily, my mother used to make ricotta cheese by taking a branch from the fig tree and snapping it in several places so it would fit in the pot of heated goat's or sheep's milk. That would coagulate the milk, taking the place of renett.

I'm surprised I missed this thread.  Outstanding work, Bass.

That's great information Vito~ do you recall tasting the fig flavor? I'm thinking maybe goat or sheep milk is so strong flavored it would cover up the fig taste.

Mike in Hanover, VA

Hello Mike.
I don't remember much of the taste, that was 60 year's ago, but that's how we made ricotta.
Vito

My Mother also has said that she used the fig branch to make ricotta in Italy but there was no significant fig taste. 

I also found out that a fig branch can also tenderize meat.  A friend of mine asked the cook at a dinner about the goat meat that they were served.  It was incredibly tender even though it as an older animal whose meat tends to be tough.  The cook said that his secret is cooking the meat with a fig branch.  I gave my friend some cuttings from my tree so that he can use them when cooking venison, goose or duck.

Luzzu

MGorski:  One of the sites mentioned that in the old days, fig juice would be dripped onto some cloth and permitted to dry and then stored for future use.  The bits of cloth would then be soaked in the warmed milk when they were ready to make the cheese. The suggested ratio was 5 drops of sap to a gallon of unpasteurized milk.  More than that would make the cheese bitter. If anyone is making cheese from their fig trees, I would be interested in their recipes. Would love to try it myself.  

Luzzu: Fig juice contains similar enzymes to papayas which I believe is used to make Papain a common meat tenderizer in this country. Not surprised at all to hear that it could also be used to tenderize meat. Think Pineapples also contain similar enzymes.

Thanks for this information.  Here we make yogurt cheese with our goat milk, makes a very desserty go with anything cheese, pairs with figs well.  

The fig never ceases to amaze me.

I'll have to make this cheese again. 

I just took a cheesemaking class this weekend, and am eyeing my fig trees as a source of vegetable rennet.

Hmmmmmmmm…

I just had bass's fig sap cheese at his place for the fig gathering.The cheese was very good . thank you,Bass!

Hey Bass, can you post the recipe you used on the cheese? Thanks!

Yay! I finally made mozzarella using fig sap as the rennet. I tried several methods and finally used the 30 min microwave method from cheesemaking.com along with some help from other videos and websites. I'm so excited to share this with you. I wrote a blog post with pictures so you can see it. Thanks for all the help from this website too!

http://gardenvariety.life/making-mozarella-with-fig-sap/

Hi Cricket
Very interesting article. Thank you for posting it.

Vito

Oh my gosh will the wonders of figs never cease!  We are looking into getting goats to make fresh cheese to eat with the figs and here we have fig cheese!  Along with a cup of fig leaf tea and the health benefits are over the top.  Happy healthy figging everyone.  Jodi

So cool, gotta try it.

Doug

Love your blog Cricket, very nice!  Thank you for your post.

several trees in other areas are used for their sap.
South America, India, Africa etc...

obviously here in the USA we have maple, but i hear birch, sycamore and some others can be used.

i have to wonder if the leaking the sap would stunt the growth of the fruit, or even of the tree ?

Hi Brad, at the home use scale there won't be any impact on the fig tree other than the impacts that come with snapping off a growing shoot tip, which many of us do all the time to induce earlier formation of figs on new growth or to get young trees to develop branching.  The recipe only uses about 1/4 teaspoon of sap per gallon of milk.  Once you break the growing tip off, the sap flows nicely until it seals itself up.  I'm going to give this a shot next weekend.  Really looking forward to tasting this cheese.  Thank you Bass and Cricket.

Back in the old days, people used to let the sap drip on little bits of white cloth. They would then let the clothes  air dry and store them in a jar.  Each bit of cloth contained enough sap to treat one gal. of milk. This allowed them to make cheese using fig rennet off season. Most of the recipes I have found claim that 5 drops of rennet are required to turn a gallon of milk into a cheese. For those who have actual experience making cheese, does 5 drops sound like the right amount (1/4 tsp)?