Mary at Across the Pond is making some delicious fig jam and preserves. Take a look! To celebrate her culinary endeavours, I have posted an extract from DH Lawrence's very sensuous poem about figs. It is a long poem so this is just an extract to whet your appetite.Figs by DH Lawrence
The proper way to eat a fig, in society
Is to split it in four, holding it by the stump,
And open it so that it is a glittering, rosy, moist,
honied, heavy-petalled four-petalled flower.
Then you throw away the skin
Which is just like a four-sepalled calyx,
After you have taken off the blossom with your lips.
But the vulgar way
Is just to put your mouth to the crack, and take out the flesh in one bite.
Every fruit has its secret.
The fig is a very secretive fruit
As you see it standing growing, you feel at once it is symbolic:
ant it seems male.
But when you come to know it better , you agree with the Romans, it is female....
It was always a secret.
That's how it should be, the female should always be secret.
There is a wonderful reading of this poem in the movie Women in love (1969) by Alan Bates. Willow, take a look!
