Proverbs, Figs and Wasps

                   "Peel a fig for a friend, a peach for an enemy."~European Proverb  

  That is some proverb.  I am not sure just where the guy who said this was going but it sure does not amount to a hill of beans in my eyes. Think about it.  First, why in the world would you peel a fig?  Once you make the effort to peel the little squishy thing, there is not a lot left.  So, if you peel a fig for your friend, you sure are not doing them any favors. Instead of handing them a nice bite-sized fig, by peeling it you give them a tiny morsel of goo. (Sweet, delicious goo but goo all the same.) Then, there is that peach.  Why would you peel a peach for an enemy? To my way of thinking, that peach does not need peeling either!  The soft peels of a ripe peach are just about the sweetest thing ever eaten! And call me greedy, but if someone has gone out of their way to be my so-called enemy, they had better just be happy with me giving them a peach in the first place and not expect me to peel it for them!  Some proverbs make no sense in the modern world.  I am sure, back in the day, this had some logical reasoning but now...nope.  Perhaps some wiseguy just wanted to mess with future generations by writing nonsensical gobbledygook and calling it a proverb.  (I honestly could see my daughter doing something like that for future generations!)

   All proverbs, valid or weird, aside, I have been dealing with figs a lot lately.  My day begins with the race against the birds for the ripe fruit. Then comes washing, chopping and jam-making.  All of these figgy doings gives me lots of time to ponder things like the statement above and figs in general.  What we call the fruit of the fig tree is actually the flower or flowers.  The tree never flowers in the form of what we normally think of as blooms.  The flowers are inside the fruit and are pollinated by a certain wasp.  The Fig Wasp (figures) crawls inside the fruit through a tiny hole and lays her eggs.  In the process she sort of wiggles around enough to pollinate the fruit. The male chews a hole in the side of the fruit to let her escape.  If no male comes to her rescue, she dies.  Yep, she usually dies inside the fig and, no, those crunchy little bits we feel when we bite into a fig are not her..those are seeds. Her body is, more or less, "eaten" by the fig itself.  Enzymes in the fig absorb her lifeless little body. 

  So, figs are a farce!  They are not fruit...they are a flower.  The crunchies are not a wasp...they are seeds.  Proverbs about figs are not to be followed...they are nonsensical!  Oh, the things that we learn while not peeling figs!