Figs and Wasps

From a botanical perspective, figs are very unusual. They are not actually fruit; instead, they are a cluster of flowers which are enclosed in a fleshy ball and never see the light of day.

Like all plants, fig trees need to be pollinated. Yet because the flowers are sealed in a ball, they cannot make use of the wind or of bees. Instead, figs rely on an intimate symbiotic partnership with a minuscule insect known as the fig wasp. 

The female fig wasp enters a male fig (which are not eaten) to lay her eggs. Her antennae and wings break off as she tunnels into the fig, so it is a one-way trip for her. Inside the fig, she lays her eggs. When the young wasps emerge, they take the fig’s pollen with them.

Sometimes, however, the female wasp enters a female fig. This is a mistake on her part, because there is no room inside a female fig for her to lay eggs. But she cannot escape, since her antennae and wings have broken off when she enters it. So she dies inside the fig—but she has brought the pollen of the male fig in which she was born, thereby enabling the tree to reproduce. Meanwhile, the fig employs an enzyme to digest the female wasp and uses the protein to produce the resultant ripened fruit.

In theory, then, this might raise kashrut problems, since every edible fig only exists as a result of a decomposed wasp. In practice, however, this is generally not a problem, for two reasons. First of all, by the time the fig has ripened, the wasp has been entirely digested. The fact that the fig “ate” an insect is no more of a problem than a chicken that has eaten insects. 

Second of all, the figs that we eat today are domesticated figs, which have an entirely different method of reproduction. Thousands of years ago, a fig tree in the Land of Israel mutated such that it managed to produce ripe fruit even without consuming a wasp.  Yet this kind of fig, called parthenocarpic, was not able to produce fertile seeds. But it was able to reproduce with the help of a human being, who cut off a branch and rooted it in the ground. These parthenocarpic figs, which do not require wasps, are the ones that are eaten today.