The fig roll or fig bar is a biscuit or cookie consisting of a rolled cake or pastry filled with
fig paste.
History
Figs are a popular
snack food in most of the world. Originating in northern
Asia Minor, traded by the sailors and explorers of the region, they became popular in the Southern and hence hotter parts of the
Mediterranean.[citation needed].
Figs were highly traded and fought over during the development of the great trade routes during the 15th to 17th centuries.
Christopher Columbus devoted a complete page to what a wonderful time it would be when he would be able to gorge himself on figs in the orient, while
Marco Polo described women in association with the beauty of figs. It was also during this period that figs reached America, when the Spanish reached the island of
Hispaniola in 1520.[1]
Mass production
In 1892 James Henry Mitchell, a Florida engineer and inventor, received a patent for a machine that could produce a hollow tube of cookie dough and simultaneously fill it with jam.[2][3][4] The machine consisted of two funnels, one inside the other, with the outer funnel creating the dough tube and the inner funnel filling that tube with fig jam.[4]
At the same time,
Philadelphia baker and fig lover
Charles Roser was developing a recipe for a pastry based on the homemade fig roll likely brought to the US by immigrants from Britain.[2][4] Roser approached the
Cambridgeport, Massachusetts based Kennedy Biscuit Company, who agreed to take on production and sales.[2]
Kennedy Biscuit Company had recently become associated with the New York Biscuit Company, and after merger to form
Nabisco, trademarked the product as the
Fig Newton.[2] The cookie was named after the Massachusetts town of
Newton.[4] It was one of the first commercially-produced baked goods in the United States.[4]