Celebrate fig season with the easiest, creamiest homemade ice cream you’ve ever tasted

One of the best things about the month of July is fresh figs. I look forward to them all year like a child does Christmas. With the hot weather being nearly unbearable, it’s nice to have something about which to get excited. 

I was nearly thirty years old before I ever tasted what is now one of my most favorite things: a fresh fig. It wasn’t until I visited a friend one summer in Munich that I ever tried one. She had previously lived in Greece, where figs are native and grow in abundance and she introduced me to them. I couldn’t believe what I had been missing. We ate our way through countless baskets of them that summer — and I have had an addiction ever since. 

Once picked, figs don’t continue to ripen or keep well. You have to pluck them from the tree at their peak and enjoy them during the few days they last, which I have absolutely no problem doing. Of course, you can save them by canning them (making them into preserves) or freezing them to add to a smoothie, but there is nothing like a fresh, ripe fig picked from the tree still warm from the sun. It is one of nature’s finest gifts. 

Unlike dried figs whose sugars become concentrated during the drying process, fresh figs are delicate and only mildly sweet with a faint taste of honey. They are shaped like fat teardrops and range in color from green to maroon to a dark, almost black, shade of purple. The flesh inside can be a yellowish-pink or a vibrant pinky-red with tiny edible seeds that create an amazing texture. If you have never tasted one, you have seriously missed out. 

I grew up with fig trees at my grandparents’ house in Oxford, Mississippi, but for some reason, no one ate them raw, at least not that I recall. Grammy, my dad’s mother, made them into preserves, which were delicious, but I can’t believe we never ate them right off her trees. I’m still mad I missed out on them for all those years.  

These days, I get my fix of fresh figs from John and Elsie, a retired couple who have an impressive garden only a mile or two up the road from where I live. They see me at least once a week once they hang their FIGS sign out by the road and I can hardly make it home without devouring nearly half of what I’ve purchased.

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Both of these recipes are old favorites, but could not be more different. Fresh Fig Ice Cream is rich, delicious and tastes incredibly indulgent, whereas Fresh Figs with Honey and Black Pepper is lighter and satisfies your sweet tooth in a fresher, cleaner sort of way. 

Fresh Fig Ice Cream is straightforward and I make it the same way every time, but when I make Fresh Figs with Honey and Black Pepper, I most often create a mixed platter using a variety of cheeses and nut/seed butters. After halving the figs, I top some with soft goat cheese, whipped feta or even bleu cheese and on other halves, I use non-dairy options like raw coconut butter (one of my favorites) as well as different nut and seed butters like walnut, almond, cashew, sunflower seed or pumpkin seed butter. Every variation is blissfully delicious and can serve as an appetizer or a dessert. 

Fig season never lasts long enough for me, but some years it can be even shorter than usual thanks to our summer rains. Fig trees don’t like to drink while they fruit. In their native Mediterranean climates, it doesn’t rain in the summer and the plants’ deep roots like it that way. Here in Baldwin County, it is nothing to get a “pop-up” storm that pours down several inches (or more) of rain in what seems like a flash. That extra water causes delicate figs to split and once split, they are ruined. 

Fig season reminds me to seize the day! Find the joy, love and excitement that’s embedded in everyday life because you never know what tomorrow may bring.