KEBABBLE Turkey gets a rise out of figs
By Fazile Zahir
FETHIYE, Turkey - The most common impression of the ficus carica or
common fig for the traveler in Turkey is the slightly suggestive sight of a
dried fig sliced and stuffed to bursting (with walnuts) and the sign Turkish
Viagra floating enticingly above it. Merchants in Istanbul's famous Spice
Bazaar, never slow to capitalize on good sales pitches, can say, "Turkish
Viagra, five times a night" in 10 different languages in 30 seconds.
This week, though, figs made the news for something more than their alleged
libido-enhancing properties. Archeologists excavating
ruins in the ancient city of Assos found 2,400-year-old figs that were still
edible in a tomb. They believe the figs were put there to be part of the last
meal of the departing spirit.
Professor Nurettin Aslan, head of the Assos dig site explained, "The figs were
probably placed here in an unripe state and have therefore survived to the
present day." To fig fanciers the news comes as no surprise, nine subfossil
figs dating back to about 9400-9200 BC were found in an early Neolithic village
in the Jordan Valley. The find predates the domestication of wheat, barley and
legumes and may be the first known instance of agriculture in the Middle East.
According to statistics published by the Food and Agricultural Organization of
the United Nations, 1,057,000 tons of figs were produced for export sales in
2005 and Turkey was the world's top fig producer at 285,000 tons, followed by
Egypt at 170,000 tons. Turkey exports up to 70% of her fig harvests and Aydin,
Izmir and Mugla are Turkey's top fig producing areas. While the ancient figs
are an exciting find for the archeologists it's not the first time that figs
have been in the Turkish news. In 2006 the small village of Ovaakca was proud
to boast of how figs had changed their lives.
Ovaakca is a small settlement five kilometers from the city of Bursa and in
2006 they grew 1 million kilos (or a thousand tons) of fresh black figs. The
village made 1.5 million Turkish lira (US$1.3 million) from their fig sales and
ex-village headman Faruk Taran commented at the time that, "About 20 years ago
the firm Alara began to buy figs from us, in those days we had a few fig trees
each and we sold about five kilos of fresh fruit a day. Because the company
gave good rates and paid on the nail for the figs we started to plant more
trees. I inherited 10 or so trees from my father but I expanded and now I have
nearly 300 trees. A mature 15-year-old tree can produce 300 kilos of fruit."
Taran explained that some families earned 10,000 Turkish lira per annum from
figs alone. More recently, in December 2007, figs even managed to get
themselves mixed up in the ongoing misfortunes of the perhaps soon to be banned
Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP). It is a Turkish government tradition
that MPs take delicacies from their region to share with their parliamentary
colleagues. The Nationalist Movement Party MP for the Aydin region, Ali
Uzunirmak, took along some of his provinces dried figs and got the teaboys to
offer them round the opposition benches.
He made a special point of making sure that they were also proffered to the
Kurdish MPs. When they reached a DTP MP, he thanked the Aydin MP and commented
loudly that Uzunirmak would have to be careful with his figs otherwise he might
be arrested for "aiding and abetting"!
Not all the fig-related news this year has been so positive or light hearted,
farmers from the Aydin region were in the news in July 2007 when they drew
attention to the effect of water shortages on their fig harvests. Celal
Gundogdu, a member of the management committee of the TARIS Fig Producers'
Association held a press conference to highlight the effects of global warming
on fig production. "We have not been able to produce the same quantity and
quality of figs that we have in previous years, already we have sent inspectors
out to the worst affected villages to assess the farmer's losses and we are
preparing a report for the government. As nearly 34,000 families in Aydin rely
on figs for their economic survival the situation could well become critical."
Turkish fig producers face another enemy as dangerous as global warming, the
fruit themselves can spoil and turn toxic. Notoriously difficult to dry, figs
often develop mold when produced in warm humid conditions. These mold contains
aflatoxins which have been known to cause cancer in animals and aflatoxin B1,
the most toxic, can cause cancer in humans. In December 2006, Czech customs
turned back 19 tons of dried figs after measuring aflatoxin levels at eight
times the permissible level. In 2002, the European Union turned back several
containers of dried figs for the same reason and having returned Turkish
customs declined to repatriate the mushy fruit because it was categorized as
"for export". The containers, each worth $50,000, were left to rot.
The fig tree has a bad reputation with farmers as a destroyer of men, the adage
among rural folk is that he who falls from a fig tree never escapes unscathed
and rarely recovers. A report from Trabzon's 2002 fig picking season listed 223
injured people in 20 days. Most suffered from broken arms, legs and ribs but
there were also two fatalities. Dr Cetin Onder of the Black Sea Technical
University's medical faculty explained that most of the injured were hired
labor who were unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of the fig tree, "Unlike
other trees the branches on a fig don't bend, crack or even make a splintering
sound, they just suddenly break and crash to the ground."
The fig tree does however have a good reputation in Islam where a hadith
(oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Prophet Mohammad) from
Bukhari says that the prophet mentioned figs and said, "If I had to mention a
fruit that descended from paradise I would say this is it because the
paradisiacal fruits do not have pits ... eat from these fruits for they prevent
hemorrhoids and help gout."
Traditionalists believe that if you see fresh ripe figs in your dreams they
always indicate unexpected levels of good fortune but if the fig is dried then
the good luck they bring will be marred by jealousy and gossip. It seems that
the best way to enjoy these lusciously moist sweet fruits is to make sure you
play no part in picking them and to eat them fresh or carefully dried. Whether
they can really keep you in sexual overdrive all night has yet to be proven.
Fazile Zahir is of Turkish descent, born and brought up in London. She
moved to live in Turkey in 2005 and has been writing full time since then.
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