Alright, not tuna fish. This is another kind of tuna. Stick with me and I'll explain. We've had a cactus growing in a terra cotta frog that was my grandmother's. This cactus is the easiest thing to grow. I never water it. I never do anything to it. It prospers growing out of the frog by the air conditioning units. Each year it puts out the most beautiful flowers
previously shown in this post and later puts forth beautiful red fruit. The fruit on the cactus are called... you guessed it, tuna.
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| Tuna on the Opuntia ficus-indica |
I've always wanted to taste the pears that grow on the cactus and this year was the year to do it. I did some Google searching and found that the name of this cactus is Opuntia ficus-indica, but it goes by many names, including Indian fig opuntia, cactus pear, and prickly pear. The fruit is red. In the event that my cactus identification on Google is off, I quickly googled to see if any cactus are toxic. (Smile) I found that all cactus fruit is edible, some might just be tastier than others.
I picked the tuna off of the cactus and brought them inside and chilled them in the fridge. Google said that they taste like a sweet watermelon. I also learned that they are full of vitamins and may even fight cancer. Well what are we waiting for?
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Chopped up tuna
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I can remember my father-in-law telling me that in years of drought, ranchers in South Texas would use propane burners to burn the spines off the cactus and soften them. Then the cows would eat the
nopales (cactus pads) providing a bit of protein, but mostly moisture content for the animals. They can also be used for 'people food,' too. The nopales can be skinned and fried and cooked with eggs and jalapenos for breakfast. They are said to taste like green beans.
So, here's what I thought: While beautiful in color, the taste was just 'okay.' Nothing special and certainly not like a sweet watermelon. They definitely weren't bad, but I wouldn't put the tunas in the delicious category, either. I ate the whole thing, skin and all. One thing you want to be careful of are the seeds. The tuna have hard seeds in them that would easily break a tooth if you aren't careful.
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| Watch out for the seeds! |
After slicing them up and eating a few without experiencing hallucinations or any other side effects, I served one to my wife. She thought the same thing. I read that they make great jelly and if our cactus ever produces enough, I may try that. It was an interesting experiment and it is good to know yet one more thing growing outside that is edible. You never know. If you ever run out of tuna in the can, there's always tuna growing on the cactus!
