Sarılop Variety
Sarılop is particularly valued for the quality of its dried fruit.
- Species: Ficus carica
- Variety: Sarılop
- Primary Use: Drying
Fig trees have flourished around the Mediterranean and western Anatolia for thousands of years.
The long, hot summers and relatively mild winters of the Aegean landscape provide particularly suitable conditions for Ficus carica, the common fig.
Over generations, farmers in western Anatolia selected varieties that adapted especially well to local soil and climate.
Among them, Sarılop developed an exceptional reputation as a drying fig.
The fruit became closely associated with the valleys of western Anatolia, particularly the agricultural landscapes of the Büyük Menderes and Küçük Menderes systems.
But the international name attached to many of these figs was not always the name of the place where they were actually grown.
Large quantities moved through İzmir, one of the eastern Mediterranean's great historic commercial ports.
Because İzmir was widely known internationally by its historic name Smyrna, the dried figs shipped through the city became famous abroad as Smyrna figs.
By the nineteenth century, figs were among the important agricultural commodities connecting İzmir's hinterland with merchants and consumers across Europe and beyond.
Railways, roads, warehouses, merchants and the port all helped connect inland agricultural districts with global markets.
That relationship between orchard and port remains one of the most fascinating chapters in İzmir's food history.