[Sca-cooks] Fig Symbology

[kingstaste at mindspring.com]

I was just contacted by one of our local Laurels who is writing a paper on
the symbology of food and sex as regards to women in literature.  She wanted
some info on figs, which I was able to pull from several books on my shelf.
Since I typed all these in, I thought those here might be interested in
reading through what I found.
And, since figs are in season, it is especially timely.
Enjoy - but be cautious - the dedication in front of one of the references -
"Lewd Food" - reads: "For Marilyn, radiantly pregnant as a result of our
researches.  I love you more than yesterday, less than tomorow."
Christianna

Fig Symbology

“The Symbolism of Figs and Fig Trees –
	The symbolic meanings of figs preceded those of the fig tree: figs have
connotations of abundance and initiation.  Ancient Egyptian priests ate them
at the moment of their consecration ceremonies, and the first desert hermits
at them too (their nutritional value is also obvious).  The many seeds in
the fig are supposed to signify unity and the universality of true
understanding, knowledge and sometimes faith.  The same idea is found in the
symbolism of the pomegranate.
	The white sap of the fig tree, which also runs from the stem of the cut
fruit, is a kind of latex and was symbolically associated with both milk and
sperm.  Feminine and masculine at once, it conveyed universal energy.
African women use it in ointments against sterility and to encourage
lactation.
	The Indians consecrated the fig tree to Vishnu, the second god in the
Brahman trinity, saviour of the world, and the ancient Greeks to Dionysos,
god of renewal.  It sheltered Romulus and Remus at their birth.  I have
already mentioned the importance of ‘sycophant’ priests in ancient Athens,
charged with announcing that the figs were ripe; a proof of the regeneration
of nature, the news was celebrated by ritual copulation.
	The fig trees of East Asian tradition are sacred.  One of them was Buddha’s
famous banyan.  Power and life, the axis of the world, inhabited by genies,
they stood for knowledge acquired by meditation.
	In North Africa the fig is still a fertility symbol, and more particularly
a blessing of the earth, itself fertilized by the dead.  This gift from the
invisible world is restored to it again in offerings of figs left on the
rocks at ploughing time, a Berber custom severely criticized by orthodox
Muslims.  The Berbers have retained many of the ancestral animist beliefs of
their race, going back to the dawn of time.
	There is some ambiguity in the Arab attitude to the fig, which is
nutritionally valuable, and beneficent in its symbolic association with
fertility, but also suggestive in shape.  Its similarity to the male
genitals has led to their being called ‘figs’, and the word is not now
applied to the fruits themselves in polite usage.  They are called khrif,
autumn, after the season that brings them.”
Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne, History of Food (translated by Anthea Bell)
Original French copyright © BORDAS, Paris, 1987, (published as Histoire
naturelle et morale de la nourritur);  pgs. 674-675
English translation © Blackwell Publishers, Ltd, 1992, 1994
ISBN 0-631-17741-8

“Figs – Figs were anciently associated with sexual symbolism.  Plutarch, the
Greek biographer and philosopher, has this to say: The festival of the
Dionysia was anciently celebrated in a popular and lively manner.  A
wine-jar was carried round and also a vine-branch.  Then someone brought
forward a goat, and another a basket filled with figs; and over all the
phallus.
	The fig was also symbolic of the male and female sex organs.  The French
expression faire la figue means to make the obscene gesture with two fingers
and thumb.  This gesture was well-known in the antique lupanaria of the
Romans.”
Wedeck, Harry E. A Dictionary of Aphrodesiacs © 1989 by Philosophical
Library.  Co-edited by Jenna Bassin and Jane Lahr.  pgs. 63-64
ISBN 0-8022-2562-4

“Figs
	The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender
grape give a good smell.  Arise, my love and my fair one, and come away.
						- The Song of Solomon

	Figs, by all evidence, have been causing men and women to cast off their
fig leaves from ancient to present times.  Consider, for example, these
lines from Aristophane’s The Peace (421 B.C.)

		Now live splendidly together.
		Free from adversity.
		Pick figs.
		May his be large and hard,
		May hers be sweet.

	Even that symbol of prudery the fig leaf itself has been held to be
aphrodisiac in nature over the years.  The fig leaf was once thought to hold
the same powers as mandrake (
), shaped as it is “like the pendulant penis
with the two testicles.”  But then figs themselves were considered potent
love food to primitive peoples because of their resemblance to the
genitalia.  The Greeks, too, associated the fruit with phallic worship and
made a point to serve it at Dionysian orgies.  As for the Romans, they
considered the fruit a gift of the god of wine and revelry, Bacchus, and
held it sacred, brewing several love potions from the fig.  One grisly one,
recorded by Horace in his Epodes, was prepared from a “wild fig growing on a
grave”, “bones snatched from the mouth of a hungry bitch”, and “feathers of
a screech owl.”  Pleasanter is the fertility rite still surviving in many
southern European countries of (gently) throwing figs instead of rice at
newlyweds for good luck.
	The fig is mentioned in the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden and
Buddhism was born under a fig tree, Buddha’s revelations coming to him while
he sat under a Nepal species called Bo.  To the Hindus the fruit is the
symbol of both the yoni, the female genitalia, and the lingam, the penis.
Certainly few other foods rival figs for use as scatological slang.  To the
Turks “fig” means anus, and among the Arabs “to nibble a fig” is
cunnilingus.  English features it in various expressions from “fig you” to
far worse, and in French faire la figue means “to give the obscene finger
gesture”.
	Figs are more alkaline and contain more mineral matter than most fruits and
have been recommended as everything from an anemia cure to a laxative.  They
are especially delicious cut in two and soaked in orange liqueur an hour or
two before being served with whipped cream.”
Hendrickson, Robert Lewd Food © 1974 by Robert Hendrickson
Published by Chilton Book Company and simultaneously in Ontario, Canada by
Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd.  pgs. 242-243
ISBN 0-8019-5766-4