Cactus Fruit

We headed out to the lease this weekend to fill feeders, adjust blinds, check cameras, sight rifles, and to hunt for pigs. Needless to say, no pork in the cooler, or this post would be about a successful hog hunt.

Rather than post the obligatory “I got skunked, but golly it’s just nice to be in the Great Outdoors’” sunset pic, I opted to come home not-empty-handed.

Enter: The Prickly Pear.

Have you ever seen a cluster of cactus with those oh-so-pretty magenta bulbs on top? What you’re looking at is a member of the wide-ranging genus Opuntia. The key traits for these plants are the flat, paddle-shaped leaves, and their colorful fruit. These are the prickly pears that give the members of Opuntia their name. If you’re willing to brave the thorns, you can pick these and eat ’em! You would be far from the first, trust in that. The fruits of the prickly pear, the stems, and even the leaves are common fare in Mexican and Southwestern cuisine.

I zeroed in on the fruit, however. For your first foray into foraging succulents, I would suggest you do the same. With a good, thick pair of leather gloves, or some rubber-dipped gardening gloves, grab, twist, and pluck! Now, of course you need to watch for the thorns on the cactus, but you also have to be mindful of the glochids – tiny hair-like thorns on the prickly pears themselves – hence the gloves. They stick in flesh quite easily and are hard to get out without tweezers (which I’ll be adding to my hunting backpack). The last place you want those is in your digestive tract.

To prepare these colorful little gems, you’ll want to get the glochids off first. Burning them off is the quickest option. After a good rinse, use a gas stove burner or a torch or a lighter to singe those off. In a pinch a campfire works just fine, as does a lighter.

Next, with a pairing knife, slice off the top and bottom of the fruit, and then, following the curve of the fruit, cut the peel off.

I recommend wearing gloves because the neon pink juice of the fruit can be a chore to get off your hands. Once peeled, you can eat the meat of the fruit straight off the cutting board. Worth noting, while the seeds are tough, you can eat them. They’re just not super pleasant.

Juice Away!

For the most fun and potential greatest yield, I recommend using the juice. A quick blend, then press through a strainer will get you there, assuming you don’t have a juicer. Twenty prickly pears will yield approximately 1 cup of juice.

The juice has an amazing color and sweet, fruity flavor – somewhere between a melon and a kiwi. It’s got a surprising amount of sugar, and is a decent source of fiber and sever micronutrients such as vitamin A, vitamin C, and calcium.

Cook it with sugar, lemon juice, and lemon peels (or pectin) to make prickly pear jam. But don’t toss the pulp from the strainer!

More Prickly Treats

Combine equal parts pulp, sugar, and water in a sauce pan. Bring the mixture to a boil to dissolve the sugar. Strain and cool. Now you’ve got yourself a gorgeous prickly pear syrup for iced tea, lemonade, sparkling water, or our Prickly Paloma!

Next time you find yourself about to go home with a goose egg, look around and see if nature has a colorful consolation prize for you! The plants we walk past every day can sometimes provide some excellent variety to our diet, and spark conversations at the same time!

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