Personal Choice Volume 2 No.13

Fig frangipane tart - my take on a Lorenza De Medici recipe - love at first bite! Succulent figs seduce our senses from late Summer through to Autumn and this year they seem to be exceptionally tasty. I adore figs, both black fleshed and white, and could happily devour several of them fresh from the hand in one sitting. To my mind, a plate of fresh figs is the perfect dessert when they are in season. I also enjoy them in a range of sweet and savoury dishes and feel they need very little fussing over. One of my favourite Australian poets, Kate Llewellyn, reminds us in her poem titled Figs how good this fruit is.

Liz Posmyk (food and writing blog)

Figs are old

each tree looks it too

before people spoke

our languages

they ate figs

and no doubt

found them good.

Indeed, figs are good and were love at first bite for me, but that slightly furry skin and granular flesh isn't for everyone's palate. . .Llewellyn continues...

'brown or purple

the skin is queer

striped furry sandpaper

and inside

the rent flesh lies

pink gorgeous wet

it doesn't throb

but it might

and the scent

a mixture

of honey

earth rain

and something green'.

Kate Llewellyn (1936) is an Australian poet, author, diarist and travel writer. Llewellyn began writing as an undergraduate. In addition to her poetry, she has written book reviews, criticisms and essays for Australian poetry and prose anthologies, magazines and newspapers and also on travel, gardening, food and people. Llewellyn is a regular speaker at writers' festivals. She has also taught creative writing courses and been writer-in-residence at a number of colleges, universities and writers' centres across Australia.

Kate Llewellyn ©