[Sca-cooks] Re: Fig symbology

[Christiane]

--- kingstaste at mindspring.com wrote:

> 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.

I did not see the message that started this off, but I can tell you that in Southern Italian slang (Naples in particular), "fica," or fig, is slang for female genitals.

A popular gesture to avert the evil eye (il malocchio, la jettatura) is the mano fica, or fig hand. It's the fist gesture with the thumb poking out between the index and middle finger. Symbolic of the male and female, if you catch my drift. The evil eye is supposed to have a drying or defertilizing effect (drying up of semen, nursing mothers, crops, fruit trees, dairy animals, wasting of children); to oppose the dryness, you need a symbol of wetness, to defuse it. Thus the juicy fig. 

I wear a cimaruta that has the mano fica as well as other symbols on it that are traditional protections against the evil eye; one of them is a fish (symbolic of female fertility). Some cimaruta include another food item, a frog (also symbolic of the male -- when the princess kissed the frog, that meant a lot more than smooching an amphibian). Traditionally, though, women aren't supposed to wear a mano fica. I'd love one in red coral. Unfortunately because of the destruction of Meditteranean coral, the ones I would be able to find would be very expensive antiques.

Gianotta