Food - Drink
You'll Probably Never Guess What Figs Actually Are
By ERICA MARTINEZ
Fresh or dried, figs are used in desserts as a compliment to cheese on charcuterie boards and make a pleasant contrast to savory dishes featuring meat. Figs remain one of the globe's most beloved fruits ... but are they really even a fruit?
While figs have been considered a fruit, they are technically inverted flowers. Fruit trees produce blossoms that need to be pollinated by insects for fruit to grow, but fig trees have no such blossoms, and as it turns out, the flowers are produced inside the fig.
Fig wasps ensure figs are grown, and in the pollination process, the female enters the male fig flower to lay eggs, and goes out covered in pollen. While that process continues, sometimes female wasps accidentally land on female figs.
The female figs also let the wasps in, but they cannot lay eggs inside, and there is nowhere for them to escape; however, they can pollinate the flower thanks to the pollen they carry on their bodies. Consumers typically eat the female figs.