A lone fig tree was the focal point of my grandparents’ backyard in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a source of great pride for both of them. My grandfather took extraordinary care to swathe the entire tree from roots to tip before the winter to protect it from the cold, and my grandmother beamed with pleasure whenever she brought the ripe fruit she picked to the table in late summer.

As a child, I didn’t much appreciate the taste of fichi, and I thought this fig fetish was peculiar to my grandparents. But I later learned there were fig trees growing in backyards all over Brooklyn, and throughout NYC’s five boroughs; Italian immigrants brought a taste of home with them and planted cuttings from fig trees in Italy when they arrived in America.