Fickle over figs!

Figs were an early childhood aversion with me, given their unusual texture. But, having a generous neighbour with a fruit-laden fig tree helped. Later, I graduated to aquiring a taste for them, so much so that I wondered why I nursed an aversion in the first place. A recent article by Vikram Doctor on figs - (http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/onmyplate/entry/little-luxuries-this-little-fig)
brought back all those memories. I learnt with surprise that figs were inflorescences (arrangement of multiple flowers) or false fruits where the curved-in base of the flower is the fleshy, edible part enclosing the flower. But, serendipity knows no discretion. Just as accidentally as I'd learnt this, I also learnt more "disturbing" facts about them from Dr. M. B. Krishna, last Sunday on my Lalbagh walk. The figs are pollinated by very small wasps that crawl through the orifice in the middle (a.k.a ostiole) in search of a suitable place to lay eggs, whereafter the fruit grows seeds. Without this pollinator service fig trees cannot reproduce by seed. In turn, the flowers provide a safe haven and nourishment for the next generation of wasps. This accounts for the frequent presence of wasp larvae in the fruit!!

Whoever would have thought that the humble fig had made me - a vegetarian into a "vermitarian"!!!! I don't know if I can still pig it out on figs, now......

Apologies to all fig-lovers for spreading this niggling bit of trivia, which I'm sure you wouldn't consider trivial.... unless of course wasp-larvae are acceptable as or alongwith delicacies! Call me a pig for this?....