There’s no good replacement for a fig. Sure, a date is nice on a summer morning and olives can make or break a salad, but when a fig is called for, a fig it had better be.

I had my first fig when I was ten. It was dried: leathery on the outside, sticky and sweet in the middle. I remember looking at it in my mother’s outstretched hand and thinking, “What is that disgusting shriveled thing? I’m not putting that in my mouth.” But I was helpless against my mother’s will and soon I had a new favorite food.

I wanted figs with every meal, as well as for snacks, but my mother wouldn’t allow it. “Figs are special fruits,” she said. “They are magical. If you eat too many, the gods will think you are a rhinoceros beetle and they will squash you.” I realized later that her threat was inspired by a picture of a rhinoceros beetle I had on the wall of my room. I don’t even know what gods she was talking about. She’s never mentioned them any other time.

When I had my first fresh fig, about seven years later, I exclaimed to the woman who had offered it to me, “Why have I never had one before? Why don’t people eat these all the time?” She shook her head solemnly and said, “It’s a shame, but many people think that fresh figs are evil. They are afraid that eating too many will cause them to become stinkbugs in their next lives.” Stinkbugs, I found out later, are the skunks of the insect world.

My dream is to own a fig farm. I work about forty hours a week as a motorcycle mechanic and another twenty to thirty as an assistant in a greenhouse. I figure in another two years I’ll have saved enough money to buy some land. If the farm really gets going, I’d like to start a little museum aimed at dispelling myths about figs. I’d put up signs on the highway and offer each visitor a fresh fig to try.

Part of me thinks its silly to have such a narrow focus in life. Is anything more effete than to live for a single food? Some people call me one-dimensional, but my wife thinks I’m sweet. She says, “You want to share your knowledge and experience of beauty. You want to make the world a better place.” Of course she’s biased since she loves me, and she also shares my fondness for the Heavenly Fruit. Sometimes we let our imaginations free and spend many happy hours musing about the fig farm and our lives there. Then, falling asleep, I peacefully think, How lucky I am that my life can fit in a nutshell!