Fig jam
Made in three or four batches across August from the fruit that is too ripe or too damaged to dry. Less sugar than most fig jams, so it is looser and it tastes more of fig.
What is in it
Figs, sugar, lemon juice and a little lemon zest. Nothing else. The ratio is about 600 grams of sugar to a kilo of prepared fruit, which is low for a jam and is the reason it sets soft rather than firm.
Figs have very little pectin and not much acid, which is a bad combination for setting. The usual answers are to add commercial pectin or to boil it into submission. We add lemon juice and stop early, and accept a loose set. You will not be able to build a wall out of it.
Which figs go in
The ones that will not dry. Every picking round produces fruit that is a day too ripe, or split, or has a wasp hole, and none of that can go on the drying trays. It is perfectly good fruit and it goes in the pan the same afternoon. Mostly Pingo de Mel in the first half of August and Bêbera types later, so a jar made at the end of the month is darker than one from the start.
We do not skin them and we do not sieve out the seeds. The seeds are most of the texture.
What it is good with
- Cheese, and specifically a hard aged sheep cheese, which is the pairing this jam exists for.
- Cold roast meat in a sandwich.
- Stirred into yoghurt.
- Warmed slightly and poured over ice cream, where the loose set is an advantage.
How long it keeps
Eighteen months unopened in a cool dark place. It is less sugary than a standard jam so it is less forgiving once open. Fridge, and four weeks.
How to order
There is no checkout on this site. Send us an email saying what you would like and how many, and we will reply with a total including postage and how to pay. Orders go out on Tuesdays.
Email hello@nossoparaiso.com, or use the form on the contact page if that is easier.
Minimum order is six jars or bottles, mixed however you like. Postage within mainland Portugal is 6.50 euros for up to six, 9.00 euros for up to twelve. Mainland EU is 18.00 euros for up to six and 26.00 for up to twelve. We do not ship outside the EU. Full detail is on the questions page.
About the missing year
We made no fig jam at all in 2025. The July heat took most of the main crop before it ripened, as described on the fig page, and what we did pick went on the drying trays because dried figs were the more useful outcome. Rather than fill jars with bought fruit we simply did not make any and told people who asked.
The 2026 crop has been much better. This year's jam was made in three batches between the 8th and the 27th of August and it is in the pantry now.
Where to next
Thirty four trees, two crops a year, and only one that counts.
The fruit that does make it onto the trays.
An August afternoon in the middle of all this, 35 euros.