Fresh figs are luxury items: They’re so delicious, so expensive (in my neck of the woods, Peapod.com is selling them for $US1.17 ($2) a piece) and so tragically short-lived. All too often, in my experience (Is it me? My refrigerator?) after I’ve decided yes, I will plop down the cash for a tiny basket of these purply wonders, my hopes are dashed when I discover, sometimes the very next day, that they are covered in mould.
Photo by Deb Schwartz.
Recently, though, in the pages of the July & August 2017 issue of Cook’s Illustrated, which is not available online even to print subscribers talk about boundaries, I found a hot tip on how to care for figs: Store them upright in an egg carton, each nestled in its own cup. I tried this with 10 fresh figs and found mould on only one of them three days later; ordinarily, most of them would have been disgustingly mould-covered by then. Caveat: Out of an abundance of caution I always eat the ripest, most bruised ones first, but an entire week later, the remaining figs were all still viable, a phenomenon I’d never experienced previously.
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One response to “How To Store Fresh Figs So They Really Last”
10 fresh figs would not last three days in my house. Straight out of the punnet; stuffed with blue cheese; baked with ricotta and prosciutto; grilled and drizzled with vincotto.
You know that poem about the plums and the icebox?
It me.