Wild figs: the 7-euro luxury rotting on the tree

Wild figs: the 7-euro fruit rotting on the tree

The third fig harvest of the season has once again brought to the table a paradox that repeats every summer: the same fruit that sells for 7 euros a kilo in the city rots in the fields with nobody picking it up. In the height of the heatwave, a forager with 47 years of experience collects every three days only the bags he can eat, and the rest is lost. This is not nostalgia: it is a portrait of a system that rewards transport and punishes making use of what grows wild.

The price of figs: from being trampled underfoot to costing 7 euros

Not so long ago, the fig tree belonged to everyone: fallen fruit was trampled on in the street. Today, at the greengrocer's, a kilo can reach 7 euros, and cherries have been seen at 18. Prices climb towards the end of the season, almost doubling, while abandoned fig trees on farms and roadsides keep producing ownerless fruit. Memories of free-for-all picking clash with the supermarket bill.

Jam, drying or freezing: the war against waste

To keep the fruit from rotting, foragers have developed an arsenal of techniques. Jam is the most common: the basic ratio is 1 kilo of figs to 400-500 grams of sugar, with the juice of half a lemon and a pinch of salt; once the purée is done, the seeds are skimmed off, as they float to the top. Others prefer drying, which turns the fig into a treat that keeps for months. And the more modern-minded turn to the freezer: up to six months, always whole or in chunks, because puréed figs release their sugar and cause insulin spikes. A tip nutritionists would endorse.

Empty Spain: free fruit with no owner

Wild foraging is resurging as a response to waste and high prices. Walnut trees, plum trees, cherry trees and hazelnuts keep producing in orchards nobody tends. But there are limits: in national parks, the Seprona (Spain's nature protection service) monitors the area and can fine foragers. Even so, the tradition lives on, at least among the older generation. The accounts of 47 years of experience in the countryside confirm it: the fruit is still there, waiting.

Varieties and drunk birds: the parallel science of the fig

The review of different growers' experiences has also brought to light a popular taxonomy: white, purple and black figs, the LSU Gold variety of American origin, and the Brown Turkey, which at 1,150 metres of altitude does not always ripen well. There are biferous fig trees (breba crops first, figs later) and others that yield a single harvest. Climate rules: in Galicia, the lack of rain has ruined the harvest. And anyone with a fig tree nearby has seen those flocks of "drunk" birds after eating fermented figs. It is no legend: the sugar turns into alcohol.

The striking fact: with 47 years of foraging behind him, the forager still finds fig trees nobody harvests from. The most expensive fruit in the supermarket is, at the same time, the most wasted. And the cycle repeats every summer.