figs

i want to tell a little story about my favourite-fruit-but-rarely-eat-it, figs. my grandmother at my father's side has this tree which has been planted at the house's lawn since i can remember. we (my cousins and i) always eat it when there are any ripened figs dropped from trees or we sometimes just picked them up from the branches. too bad, it is usually limited in numbers. of course, as small kids, this fruit seems alien for us as i barely see this fruit sold at the market. and, i myself did not know what was the name. it taste real goooooood especially the one which has red colors on its skin.

to tell you the truth, i only know the exact name of this fruit recently when i enrolled into UiTM with culinary courses. being a person who loves to see cooking show, i often seen the chefs use figs in their cooking. i thought it was some kind of imported fruit and if by any chance it is available in Malaysia, it would be limited and expensive too. but, looking at the shape, the colors and size, it somehow reminded me of my grandma's tree. so, last week while i was at my hometown, i went to this tree and snapped the pictures to be published here to show to my readers (if there's any..haha). it's been years since i last ate this fruit because this tree doesn't fruit that much and once it's ripened, it's easily getting damage and mushy since this fruit doesn't have such a long shelf life. by the way, i googled about this fruit just now and found out that figs in Bahasa Malaysia is known as "ara". well, a name i am not really familiar with. but, it has other name and maybe we all know as "tin" especially among Muslim as there is one Surah in our Holy Quran telling us about this fruit.

from my reading in Internet, this fruit has a lot of health benefits. this fruit contains antioxydant to prevent cancer, has both Omega 3 and 6 and low in fats. it is also has low sodium, low in calorie, and free from cholesterol which is perfect snack for diabetic persons. so, those who havenn't eat this fruit yet, (i mean, the fresh, not the dried one), grab it and try it!

growing babies

my big head and small hand pointing to the fruits