To All,
In my foraging trips to Market Basket I had seen something called a cactus pear. Wondering what this was, I googled it and found out that it was the fruit of the prickly pear cactus, which was one of my common childhood weeds. It never occurred to us to eat a weed, so I never sampled this food.
I got one at Market Basket for 99 cents. (My keyboard does not have the symbol for cents; this is one way that we have regressed from the typewriter.) My cactus pear had the size, shape, and pebbled skin of a hand grenade. (See picture below.) I looked up an Internet video on how to peel it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJpW_j1EYTY. (There was another video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsOix7iFvD0 that showed how to pick it; this involved a blowtorch.) You cut off the ends, make a shallow cut end to end that just penetrates the skin, and then peel it. Easy, even for me. The fruit that came into view had the unappealing sickly red that I associate with beets. I cut off a slice and stuck it into my mouth. The essence of this fruit is that it is all texture and no flavor; despite assiduous effort I was unable to discern any flavor at all. The texture was chewy intermixed with big hard seeds; You had to be careful when chewing not to chomp down on a seed. I apparently swallowed the seeds, though I was unaware of it. I easily finished this fruit in one sitting.
Verdict: While it is of some interest to eat a childhood weed, this fruit has nothing to commend it (except for the hackneyed claim that it is high in vitamin C), and the many hard seeds make it something of a chore to chew. I see no reason to revisit this fruit.
Where do these cactus pears come from? I speculate that the barren fields of West Texas, ruined by overgrazing, have been re-purposed as prickly pear farms. Imagine the majestic site as you drive down the highway and observe prickly pears stretching out on both sides as far as the eye can see.
The Fruit Explorer
P.S. While at BJ's with Mike, I was, as ever, alert to new fruits to sample, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a big display of chayote. I sorted through the big pile while Mike studied the posted documentation. Just as I had found a good one and was putting it into the basket, Mike announced the fruits of his scrutiny; chayote was a vegetable. l quick put it back. I shudder to think that I nearly bought a vegetable.
