I dont peel the figs but once in a while i have not much.
Last season i was curious about Violet de Bordeaux and peeled the skin and ate the skin by itself and i was pleasantly
surprised by it.
You mentioned you never met a person who peeled an apple?
When young i never did peel apple's but i do everytime now because i guess as i aged my teeth have somewhat larger gaps and when biteing down into unpeeled apple the peel would hurt my gums so i peel them all the time figs dont do this to me.
Martin

I don't peel figs usually(Celeste), but I find that my Adriatic type and the RR Atreano have very thick skin at the top, so I sometimes peel them down a little. Never peeled an apple, except for pie! Tim

I don't peel whole figs. However we have very low humidity and my open eye varieties can get dry and tough around the eye. When this happens I peel the bottom around the eye.

I tend NOT to peel them "ripe" figs, however skin peeling
does remove some of that nasty "white-latex" stuff,
specially when the fruit is not fully-ripened yet.

Some figs have thick skins and must be peeled or chopped for making into fig preserves or jam.....as the skins will not get tender enough during processing. I never peel a fig for fresh eating. My first bite, near the eye, will let me know if I will eat the whole fig or just the pulp inside. I have read (never verified) that black figs are more "caustic" than white/green figs. Supposedly those who's lips, mouth, and gastrointestinal tracts are sensitive to the caustic nature of some figs (especially Black varieties)....can peel their figs to lessen this particular problem. My mom will peel all of her figs for fresh eating....even Celeste; because, she will get a sore mouth if she doesn't peel them.

Dan

Latex seems to more prominent towards the "stem" end.

That's interesting about figs being caustic, it never occurred to me.

Gorgi: if I get latex when I pick a fig it's probably not ripe enough, so I do cut off the stem end sometimes

I'm glad someone asked this question as I was not sure if I'm suppose to eat the whole fig or peel them...lol. I guess you can do both. When the time come I will try eating the fig with skin and then try peeling. Wondering if there is a difference in taste doing it that way.

Oh yes, IMO there is definitely added flavor from the skin.

Also....those studies about fruits that are high in antioxidants say that it's the deep blue and purple colors that have the highest antioxidant content...such as the skins on the purple figs. Why waste that?