The DiRosa Fig

Carmen, emigrated from the Campania region of Italy to Delaware in the 1880s–1890s. He worked at the Pusey and Jones shipyard in Wilmington, and in time sponsored other Italian immigrants making the same journey to Delaware. One of those immigrants gave him a fig tree brought over from Italy — a tree that grew in his yard for over 100 years.

When Carmen’s grandson left his home, he took a cutting and established multiple fig trees on his own property. When Catherine, the great granddaughter, later left her father's home, she took cuttings of her own and has grown fig trees in every home she's lived in since. Figs have become a family tradition — the family has loved eating them, sharing them, and gifting fig trees to anyone willing to listen to the family's story or adopt a tree of their own. Today, the family fig tree grows in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Indiana, North Carolina, and Georgia.

The figs ripen in August, green when unripe and turning a deep purple at maturity, with red flesh inside. Family lore has given the variety an affectionate nickname: "God's Candy.