Anjeer Extra Bold 250gm

Press one before you buy it

A good dried fig gives. It should be pliable and slightly yielding under the thumb, not hard.

Rock-hard figs have been over-dried or are simply old, and no amount of soaking fully recovers them. This is the easiest quality test on the whole shelf and almost nobody performs it.

The white bloom is a good sign

Figs often develop a pale, powdery surface film, and people throw them away thinking it is mould.

It is crystallised natural sugar — glucose migrating to the surface as moisture leaves. It means the fruit was dried properly and its sugars are concentrated. Mould is fuzzy, coloured, and smells fermented. Bloom is flat, white, and smells of fig.

Afghanistan

Afghan figs are the small, pale, intensely sweet kind, with a honey character and a soft seed crunch. Turkish figs — the large flat brown ones most people picture — are a different fruit with a different profile: milder, chewier, more caramel than honey.

Extra bold is the largest diameter tier. In figs, size tracks sugar concentration and how long the fruit was allowed to ripen before drying.

Nature's slow dessert

A fig is a fig with the water taken out, which means the sugar per bite is several times that of the fresh fruit. Two or three is a sensible portion — genuinely rich in fibre, iron and calcium, and genuinely concentrated sugar.

Soaked overnight in water or milk they plump considerably and soften, which is the traditional way to eat them and the easier one on digestion.

Keeping them

Do not refrigerate. Figs pick up condensation, go sticky, then mouldy. Airtight in a cool, dark cupboard: around six months.