What is a fig?

The fig we eat is a syconium: a hollow, fleshy receptacle whose inner wall is lined with hundreds of tiny flowers.¹ What look like seeds when you bite into a fig are the small fruits, called achenes, that develop from those flowers. In other words a fig is an inside-out cluster of flowers, and the sweet, soft interior is the flower stalk tissue and the achenes together.

The cultivated fig is Ficus carica, a member of the mulberry family, Moraceae.¹ It is one of the oldest fruit plants in cultivation and grows as a deciduous shrub or small tree in warm-temperate and Mediterranean climates.

The eye

At the bottom of every fig is a small opening called the ostiole, usually referred to as the eye. In wild and Smyrna-type figs this is where the pollinating fig wasp enters. In common figs the eye still exists, and its size matters to growers: a wide, open eye lets rain and insects in and lets the fruit sour or split, while a tight, closed eye keeps the fruit clean in wet weather.

Why this matters in the kitchen

Because a fig is mostly soft receptacle tissue with no hard core, there is nothing to peel or stone. The skin is edible on almost every variety. The achenes give jam its faint crunch and much of its texture, and the sugars and acids of the flesh are what decide whether a variety makes a bright jam or a flat one.