The Sleeping Figs

‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground, they also soaked their figs in milk, and then some sleep they found.’ That’s essentially the back story of this dish. I love its name—the Sleeping Figs—because it suggests the gentle process of warming the milk and resting the pudding overnight.

A version of this dessert, called teleme, has been a typical goat herder’s snack popular for thousands of years in northwestern Anatolia. They’