Fig feast

Fresh or dried, this fruit has been adding subtle sweetness to the table since the days of the Romans.

Once figs have dried -- and the dried ones are most common -- they look nothing like the fruit that is plucked right off the tree. Their striking deep-purple or lime-green skins have disappeared, along with the moisture in the delicate seeds. And yet, each kind of fig has its place on the table. After cooking, dried figs are plump and inviting, quite different, but just as appealing as the fresh.

The Romans feasted on fresh figs and used the dried fruit to sweeten food. Although many Old Country gardeners pride themselves on the figs from their backyard trees, fresh figs didn't become popular on the modern table until 20 years ago, when American restaurant cooks looking for inspiration went to Europe. They returned home with what they thought was Italy's latest innovation: fresh figs draped with prosciutto. The combination was nothing new, writes Alan Davidson in The Oxford Companion to Food. It had been around since Roman times.

Fresh figs are in season now, though briefly, so if you don't know what a sublime combination figs and salty meat can be, this is a good time to buy the fruit and some thin slices of prosciutto at your favorite Italian market. If it is dried figs you have on hand, cut them up and tuck them with wedges of onion alongside Cornish hens, sprinkle the dish with port, and let the figs bathe in the roasting juices. What emerges are morsels of beefy, earthy fruit, just right beside poultry and its crisp skin.