ig trees have dotted the landscape of Campania, especially the area known as Cilento, for thousands of years. Thanks to their abundance, and because they could be dried and stored for very long periods, figs have always been a traditional cash crop for the local population, as well as a very important staple during times of hardship.
According to the historical record, figs were first introduced in Cilento by those very same Greek settlers who founded many of the area’s cities and villages. Writers have been praising the quality of the local fig production since those ancient times, when dried figs were considered a luxury, a very rare and expensive delicacy, to be sought in the most refined markets.
The Roman authors Cato and Varro, for instance, relate Cilento and Lucania as such fruitful lands that even the humble laborers working the fields were commonly given dry figs to eat.
For centuries, the same people who tended the fig trees and gathered their fruits also took care of the drying process. The slow, simple and all-natural procedure became a custom which creates a strong bond between man and the land.
This centuries old relationship has influenced local culture so profoundly that figs and fig trees continue to be recounted in many traditional sayings, tales and proverbs.
