When I was a little boy both of my parents had to work to support myself and my younger brother. As was the case most of my days were spent being babysat at my grandmother’s house. She woke early every morning to make tortillas by hand for the day (a recipe any member of my family has yet to replicate although we have the measurements for the ingredients), tidy up the house, and basically be the glue that kept my family together. Her biggest diversion from the monotony of the housework and ancestral anchoring was the keeping of a garden in her yard. Everything was born in a bucket or an empty coffee can, an abundant assortmanet of plants, fruits, vegetables and flowers. Only after they were too big for the cans did they make their way into the ground. Her collection was impressive. Being knee high to the neighborhood dog, walking through the foliage I felt like Indiana Jones looking for the “Lost Ark” sans the giant boulder and head hunters chucking spears at my head. Getting lost in there was a simple game that brought a lot of enjoyment. With my flexible shrub branch whip, I would fight back foliage and extruding limbs of other trees and bushes and race the Nazis to the back of the “jungle.” The aroma was so intense if I closed my eyes I’d swear I was at the perfume counter at Macy’s if not for the soft layer of mud on my feet. The beautiful colors of flowers and budding fruit tempted me to taste anything that looked edible. Along side those coffee cans, my adventurous nature to eat new things was also born. It was here I chewed my first piece of sugarcane. If a tall stick that looked like something old men used to get around with could taste so good, what else could I find here? I was determined to find the back of the garden. The mud was a little deeper, spider webs could be seen in the bushes (insert slow creepy music)…and then…past the chili pepper plants, cilantro, perennial budding flowers I found a tree with huge big green leaves shaped like giant shamrocks. Dangling from the branches was a fuzzy purple sack that at first I assumed to be a small pear but after picking it felt to soft to be one. The texture of the skin had a feeling of velour as I pinched it between my first to fingers and my thumb, it ripped open to reveal a rosy colored flesh. It felt taboo but I didn’t hesitate to put the half into my mouth and bite down. The skin was tender yet leathery and the seeds inside popped slightly in between my teeth as I chewed. The liquid released from the flesh was sweet but not overwhelming me so, kind of like stale grape juice. I had found my new favorite reason to play in my grandmother’s garden. I looked forward to the times my parents had to keep me with her so I could sit in the mud at the back of the garden and eat “Higos.” Taboo yet invigoratng -my introduction to addiction. It was like the Playboy magazine under the bed. The fig became my favorite thing to eat as a child and to this day still brings back memories of that garden. I can still smell the mixture of aromas of the herbs and colorful plumage of the garden when I bite into one. I use them a lot in my cooking. I love them in salads or caramelized with a good steak. I still giggle when I slice one in half. All Indy ever got in his jungle was snakes, I got food porn.
Foodies Block 