A few days ago, my next door neighbour kindly presented me with a basket of enormous, ripe and luscious figs.

She also told me something I didn’t know, that these particularly large figs, the first crop of the season from trees in the family fields, are always ready for picking about the time of the feast of St John. Apparently, her trees also go on to produce a second croplater in the year, but the fruit is smaller.

Figs, like olives, are the quintessential Mediterranean fruit and one of the earliest fruits to be cultivated by man. They are unusual in that the variety known as the Caprifig needs to be fertilised by a tiny insect, the fig wasp, while other varieties like the Smyrna need to be in close proximity to Caprifigs to flourish.

Although the best figs are said to come from Turkey, if the ones I was given are anything to go by, Maltese figs are pretty good too.

And, judging by the amount of squashed fruit falling from roadside trees, Maltese figs manage quite well without the services of either fig wasps or Caprifigs.

Although they are good to eat as a fruit on their own, I had more than enough to use in recipes, so my first thought was jam, simple to make and delicious on toast for breakfast.

Then I made some fresh chutney which I served with duck breast. It will keep in the fridge for a week or two, but if you want to make it for longer storage, use half a kilo each of chopped onions and figs, 150 g of dark brown sugar, 200 ml of red wine vinegar, a teaspoon of mixed spice and some seasoning, then cook until all the vinegar has been absorbed and it’s very thick.

It will taste fairly harsh and vinegary at first and needs time to mellow, so store it in a cool, dark place (difficult to find in Malta in summer, I know), but the longer you leave it, the better it will be. I have been promised some more fruit, so I intend to make lots of chutney and stash it away to have with my ham and cold turkey at Christmas.

I think smaller figs are best for desserts. Oven-poached in cinnamon and orange-flavoured marsala, they are nice served either warm or at room temperature with some mascarpone and amaretti.

Whether you have large figs or small, they both go beautifully with Parma ham and mozzarella. A drizzle of good olive oil, a few basil leaves and voilà, the perfect no-cook starter for summer.