I saw them in the store. Each fig was carefully set into a little depression in the plastic container that held them. Each fig was perfect… same size, same shape, same color. My mind raced back to my childhood. Mrs. Letizia is standing in my dad’s store holding a fig from her fig tree. She has cut it into four pieces so we can each have a taste. In the city, fig trees didn’t produce a lot so you shared what they provided so everyone could have a taste. I remember putting that piece of fig in my mouth and having my mouth explode with joy. The taste was so sweet and amazingly good. So I bought the boxed figs and brought them home and stood in my kitchen and popped one into my mouth, waiting for the joy of its flavor to wash over my taste buds.
Thanks a lot, agribusiness. You have taken one of the most tasteful foods on earth and made it into a cardboard like, tasteless imitation of what it once was. Yes, it’s a perfect size and shape and color. And it’s also perfectly tasteless.