Description of one of the most ancient tropical trees. Chemical composition and useful properties. Possible harm and contraindications for use. Fig mulberry recipes. Interesting facts about sycamore. Fig mulberry can be used in the treatment of bronchitis and to reduce the frequency and severity of asthma attacks in adults and children. It is very simple to make a medicine: 6 figs are boiled in 0.5 liters of milk until the liquid part begins to evaporate. The sweet mixture has a mucolytic and expectorant effect. During illness, children refuse to eat. And sweet berries, which parents give for medicinal purposes, can quickly restore the loss of strength and stimulate the body's immune system to fight the disease. The healing effect is provided not only by figs, but also by the bark of trees. If you chew sycamore bark along with cola nuts, you can quickly tone the body up.
Contraindications and harm to sycamore fruits
When introducing fig mulberry into the diet, the individual reactions of the body must be taken into account. Development of allergic reactions is possible. Harm from sycamore when overeating can occur with a violation of blood clotting and in the form of a tendency to diarrhea.
There are no contraindications for the introduction into the diet of pregnant women, lactating women and children under 3 years of age. However, you should not use wild figs as complementary foods, even if your parents have eaten these berries all their lives. Too "fatty" fruits can provoke indigestion and painful colic in an infant in the first year of life.
How is fig mulberry eaten?
Fig mulberries can be eaten fresh, dried, dried and stewed, used for making side dishes and sauces, supplementing salads, cooking compotes.
In most recipes, fruits are introduced in dried or dried form, but if they were treated fresh, you need to know how to eat sycamore. You should not try to chew and swallow the berry - because of the many seeds, this is unlikely to work. Tickling, coughing will appear. You need to bite the fig and suck the viscous juice, and put the fruit on a napkin.
Ash left over from burning sycamore bark can replace salt.
For food purposes, not only wild figs are used, but also the leaves of the tree. Traditionally, they are used in peanut-based dishes such as pasta or peanut soups.
Sycamore fruit recipes
For a long time, sycamore was considered a sacred tree, and figs were introduced into recipes only for the nobility. And the commoners feasted on the fruits secretly, if they could collect ripe ones. Now the fruits of wild figs can be enjoyed freely.
Delicious Sycamore Recipes:
- Kish … Break 2 eggs, add some salt, mix with a glass of flour, 2/3 of a pack of butter and 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar. You need to get a dough of such a consistency so that it can be rolled out. The dough layer is again collected into a "ball", wrapped in plastic wrap and put into the refrigerator for 1 hour. While the batch is cooling, the sycamore, 6-7 pieces, is washed and laid out on paper towels to dry. The dough is taken out, rolled out again, laid out on parchment spread on a baking sheet or in a mold, and put back into the refrigerator. Spicy cheese, 250 g, cut into small pieces, pour into a blender bowl, add a little butter, 150 g feta cheese, 2 glasses of heavy cream, 33%, and 3 eggs, one at a time. Beat until smooth. If the pungency is not enough, add the pepper mixture. Take out a layer of dough, spread sycamore berries on it, cut into 4 parts, pour the mixture from a blender bowl. Bake for 45-50 minutes at 180 ° C.
- Ice cream … Goji berries, 2 tablespoons, pour the same amount of black currant liqueur. For the ice cream itself, it's best to use an ice cream maker, but you can also use a blender. Egg yolks, 3 pieces, beaten with 100 g of sugar and 2 glasses of cream. Bring to a boil over low heat. The dried figs are cut into thin slices, boiled until soft in a little water, and when it boils away, add goji berries to the pan. As soon as it boils, combine the milk and berry mixture and cook for 20-30 seconds. Cool to room temperature, interrupt in a blender or ice cream maker, set to freeze in the freezer. After an hour, interrupt again so as to obtain a homogeneous structure. Now you can pour it into molds and put it in the freezer. When it hardens, you can feast on it.
- Sycamore sauce for meat … The figs are ground in a blender along with the head of garlic and chili pod, salt and vinegar is added to taste. It is better to refrigerate before use.
- BBQ sauce … Pour boiling water over two large dried figs for 5 minutes. Then the soft fruits are laid out in a blender along with a teaspoon of tomato paste, a quarter cup of balsamic or wine vinegar, and a teaspoon of salt. In a frying pan, in olive oil, fry 2 cloves of crushed garlic, add fruit mass from a blender to the pan, pour 200 ml of water into the pan, put 1 bay leaf in a saucepan. Boil for 15-20 minutes until the liquid boils away. Cool the sauce before serving.
Compotes are cooked from fig mulberries, like from ordinary dried fruits, but you can use it as an addition to your usual dishes. For example, cook milk jelly with sycamore.
In milk, 1, 5 cups, dissolve 3 tablespoons of sugar. Juice is squeezed out of fresh sycamore - you need to get 2 tablespoons. Heat sweet milk over low heat, bring to a boil, pour in berry juice, boil until the drink thickens. The condensed milk is removed from the heat, cooled first at room temperature and then in the refrigerator.
Interesting facts about sycamore
The most interesting thing about wild figs is that from a botanical point of view, they are flowers. What appears to be seeds to consumers are actually stamens.
In ancient times, sycamore was pollinated by symbiotic wasps (Ceratosolen arabicus). Insects gnawed the shells, took root in them, transferred pollen from the female parts of plants to the male ones. Seeds were tied, nuts, which spilled out to the ground when the flower capsules were overripe. And then the wasps died out and the trees became sterile. Now they can reproduce only vegetatively - by shoots.
In the New Testament, sycamore is mentioned 7 times: under its crown the Holy Family found refuge, fleeing from Judea from King Herod to Egypt. But Christianity is not the only religion that honors the sacred plant. The priests of the Kekuyu, a people still living in Central Kenya, sacrifice to their deity Ngai only under wild figs. When a tree falls, it is considered such a bad omen that a human sacrifice is made to appease the Creator.
In Egypt, commoners were not allowed to eat fruits. They were given only to the nobility equated to the celestials. In tombs, boxes and amulets made from fig mulberry wood were often found next to mummies.
The expansion of the growing area did not occur independently. Sycamore seedlings were brought to Palestine by the Philistines in ancient times, in the Iron Age.
In the central part of Israel, there is a sycamore of the balami type, and in the south, in the Ashkilon region, where the Philistines used to live, the Razi. Trees can still be admired in the parks of the city of Holon. The species differ in the shape of the fruit. Razi are larger and look more attractive, they are easy to pick, but they are inferior in taste to sweet balls. In addition, the razi easily tolerate transportation, and the shelf life reaches 2-3 months.
Nowadays, sycamore fruits are practically not consumed - they have been almost completely replaced by bananas, oranges and common figs.
Fig mulberries are grown for decorative purposes. Under natural conditions, it is easy to care for a tree: it is enough to loosen the soil around the trunk, fertilize and ensure regular watering, and new branches begin to grow on old stumps and become covered with foliage.
If you pick fruits from trees growing in Kenya in natural conditions, then you will not be able to feast on figs. If you bite such a berry, then a swarm of insects will fly out of it. Cultivated plantings are immune to fruit flies.
You can grow a tree in your greenhouse and greenhouse. The larger the specimen, the greater the chances of fruiting. First, the plant is planted in flower pots, and then transplanted onto prepared soil. A seedling with leaves that has reached 15 cm in length has a chance to set fruit.
In the summer, the seedlings have a fairly stable temperature of 25 ° C, and in the winter they are removed from drafts, creating optimal conditions for rest - 10 ° C. In winter, they rarely water and do not feed.
In the artificially created summer season, feeding is carried out weekly, watered daily, but the bay should be avoided. Mineral fertilizers are enough, as for ordinary indoor flowers, but they should be applied regularly. To do this, change the top layer of fertile clay soil.
Watch a video about sycamore:
If you fulfill all the conditions, then you can not only touch the history without leaving your own city, but also taste the sacred fruits. You can also grow sycamore on a windowsill, however, it is impossible to get a harvest from a low plant.
