Apr 18

Apr 18 Giving a Fig

Bread Cake Pastry, Fruit, Puddings, Robert Jones, Travel, Corfu

I see supermarkets in other countries as jungles to be navigated.

Clearly, it’s easy to wander through the wide popular aisles to buy all the things that tourists need to make them feel as though they are not actually abroad at all - tea, burgers, chips, milk etc. Avoiding all the ‘foreign muck’ as you often hear.

I like the roads less travelled. The off the beaten track aisles where you only find local food for local people. I feel I ought to be wearing a pith helmet and carry a butterfly net.

That’s where you find the interesting, and often cheap stuff.

For example .. if you can get over the five litre plastic packaging - there’s a very fine range of local Corfu red wines which are perfectly acceptable for an astonishingly low price - mainly I think because they are straight off the farm, botlled and into the shops.

But also … there are the local delicacies which maybe prove an experience too far for visitors intent on lying on the beach and supping a chilled prosecco.

And so it was that I stumbled upon the following … Sykomaida.

Now .. this is the kind of stuff I like. Containing local figs, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ouzo, and anise… it settled well around my sweet teeth. Not for everyone, I am sure. It’s quite heavy, and ‘figgy’.

I found a very entertaining review video made by three Deep South Americans online which rather sums it up. Although they tried a version which contained Kumquats, which seemed to be everywhere in Corfu. And I mean everywhere.

So …. Sykomaida are figs mixed with wine, and flavoured with aniseed, pepper and ouzo, shaped in the hand and traditionally wrapped in fig leaves. The should be dried in the sun, which immediately causes an issue with trying to create that ‘authentic experience’ back in the UK but apparently an oven works just as well.

There is usually a warning not to try to eat a whole one in one sitting - but the ‘good news’ is that they can keep for up to a year. After that though, they are probably only good as door stops.

The recipe: A kilo of dried figs. 1 litre of fortified wine. I litre of Ouzo. Crushed walnuts, fresh fennel, ground black pepper, aniseed, cloves, cinnamon. All mulched together, shaped and wrapped in fig leaves, and wrapped in string.

Method: Fine chop the figs, steep in the liquids, add the rest of the ingredients and kneed until mushy. Form into patties, wrap and allow to dry out.

Certainly gets your internals working.