Zingarella, Ronde de Bordeaux, Latarulla

[mountainfigs]

Rain for a change the past couple days here. Zingarella handled it far better than Ronde de Bordeaux and Latarulla. Zingarella, Mt Etna type, doesn't mess around. It swells, colors, and ripens in a few days into absurdly delicate jam. Meanwhile Ronde de Bordeaux and Latarulla swell, color, and can then hang around for a couple weeks and still not gain the very sweet level that the Mt Etnas gain much more quickly. So, these Ronde de Bordeaux and Latarulla, though fresh and flavorful, were neither as sweet nor as flavorful as Zingarella, even if they look more colorful and picturesque and hang around on the trees for a much longer period of time, which can be nice assuming the critters are in check.

Notice the long necks on the Zingarellas. Those are edible necks, not stems. Notice the complete lack of necks on Ronde de Bordeaux and Latarulla. Visible on those are inedible stems and no necks.

[greenfig]

Thank you for posting! My Zinga has a few still green figs being only rooted this winter. I hope mine will be close to yours.

[Harborseal]

How does it taste compared to Hardy Chicago?

[mountainfigs]

Zingarella, Hardy Chicago, Marseilles Black, Gino's Black, Mt Etna Unknown, Salem Dark, Keddie, Takoma Violet, etc, these all taste the same to me. They all look the same to me, in leaf and fruit. They taste great, the trees look great, the fruits look interesting, they ripen early and continuously to frost. These trees are prolific and robust. They bounce back from winter top kill (including total top kill) to fruit like no other type of fig tree I've seen. These trees are the treasures of my home orchard: so dependable, so flavorful, so prolific. They have a wide flavor range, depending on the type of season, circumstances of growth, and time of picking. The range is from a bomb of a rich thick berry-caramel glaze, to berry jam, to fresh crisp or juicy berry, to grape-strawberry punch, sometimes with a zing of acid, tart. Everyplace in this wide range of flavors tastes wonderful to me. Quite a number of figs need to taste very ripe or dead ripe or they taste unripe or otherwise off. That is rarely the case with Mt Etnas, which seem to be able to ripen more quickly, to more satisfying degrees, and in more different ways than most figs. It makes sense that figs able to grow in the most marginal fig growing areas would be most readily pleasing when given the TLC of dooryard cultivation. These are not finicky figs to begin with. A little TLC, and they really reward. That's one view, one hypothesis.

Now, I should qualify my remarks about the seeming sameness of these figs. We should keep the found names that these figs come with for many reasons. With the names come history, information, stories, culture, knowledge. Also, no one knows whether or not these figs are or are not identical, or even very closely related. I can't make anything but artificial, unproveable distinctions between them currently, and I don't much expect to ever be able to do so, but who knows. I'm keeping my eyes and mind open because 1) it's interesting, 2) it would be foolish not to, and 3) I'm always hoping to find an ever hardier, ever more bountiful, or ever more wonderful fruit, whether Mt Etna variety or not.

[newnandawg]

Tony, very nice and informative report. Thanks for sharing.

[Rewton]

Tony, am I remembering correctly that your Zingarella is not the Richard Watts type and came through a different source? The Richard Watts type seems to be more closely related to the Sal's-Corleone family of figs.

[mountainfigs]

Correct.

Palermo Red (aka Sal's Corleone, Aldo, etc) is much different, later, more difficult, though in pot Aldo provides a few nice brebas each year, this year beginning July 21.

I've never seen the Richard Watts type of Zingarella so don't know its relation to Palermo Red or anything else.