Prickly Pear (Tunas) Harvest

It’s that time of year when the prickly pears are swollen and ripe and begging to be picked. I feel a but pretentious calling them tunas when we have the name prickly pear in English, but I don’t care for prickly pear. My life is full of many of these little dramas.

I singed the outsides of the pears with a flame, cut them in half and then scooped out the insides into a copper pot. The spent skins went to the chickens.

I cooked them for about an hour and then put them through a food mill before cooking them for another 2 hours. The reduction it makes is glorious and sweet. It tastes familiar and tropical and yet it’s like nothing else.  I made popsicles for the kids and a tequila drink for me.

At the farmers market, I bought one of those dreamy St Benoit plain yogurts and mixed in some of the prickly pear reduction. Sometimes you just get inspired and reach great heights.

I love the taste, the sustainability aspect and of course the fact that they’re indigenous, but apparently new research shows that you can actually lower your cholesterol by eating a prickly pear. I don’t think we should think of them as exotic much longer.