As an Arizonan, it was really interesting hearing you describe all this to an audience who’s never experienced the Southwest firsthand. The descriptions of how the spines feel while they’re in you is startlingly accurate, even though I never thought of how I’d describe it since to me it’s just how a cactus spine feels.
Damn, i know that too, we have those cactus here in Europe too, in France, when i was a teen, i walk in the grapes fields, obviously the soil is acid so they pop up everywhere like mushrooms. And yeah, i hold it bare hands, eat it and feel bad as my hands itching but. Man this fruit is delicious
I'm in Australia, cactuses were grown as ornaments including the prickly pears. My office's parking lot grown them and one day I picked some because I see they were sold at my local grocer and wanted to know what they tasted like. An hour after picking the fruit, my fingertips were on fire. That was my first and only time getting impaled by a cactus.
I tried prickly pear for the first time a few years ago. "Purple" is the perfect way to describe how it tastes. I would also say similar to dragonfruit
They used to be quite popular in the Mediterranean (obv. as an invasive species); now they've become somewhat fashionable again in the super markets, and I have been meaning to give those a try from the grocery store.
We probably learned that it's safe to eat by watching tortoises. Tortoises can eat the with the skin. Also you can eat stinging nettle which is arguably worse than a cactus because is has hair like needles that basically act like fiber glass on your skin. The trick is to grab the leave non needle side fold it onto itself then roll it into a ball which crushes the thorns. You can then eat it raw.
Mexican during Independence Day here: This fruit, and base cactus, are part of the national crest, so it has a sacred-symbol status in our culture. We eat tunas during the rainy season (summer) as they pop up in bunches and are fresh and available on the supermarket. Tuna + Tequila ? Excellent channel!!! (Nopal taco: extra credit)
But... why though? Isn't that the whole point of eating it? The heterogeneity of your throat being stabbed combined with the taste of the sweet cactus is what brings the experience together and it is something that me and my family aren't going to give up soon. RIP Timmy you will be missed. Not for choking to death but because you're dead to us for giving up on the family.
Well it exist another angry plant that looks really edible "Hippomane mancinella" or "manzanilla de la muerte" that its fruits looks like apples and are deadly. The tree is so poisonous that if you burn it the smoke are that toxic that can make you blind.
I live in Arizona, we have prickly Pear EVERYWHERE. I remember going out with my dad, step mom and brother when I was little to pick some of the fruit to make jelly. It was a fun experience! We had a gas stove we used to burn off the thorns. If you have a prickly pear near you you can get fruit off of, I recommend making juice or jelly just be careful with the thorns! They can hurt!
In south Italy we have "fichi d'india" and they are pretty similar. They come in three different colors, green, red and orange and each of them have a different flavour. My favorite is the green one, that has a cucumbery melony green taste. They are great to eat during hot summer days!
@Marouan Fares As-salaam Alaykum. Kulshi mzien? So glad to see a Moroccan here. In Morocco you can get these (l'hindi) from street vendors, or just pick them yourself. They are very tasty. I loved them, but the seeds were hard as granite! I visited a friend in Spain near Ronda, and there I picked a bunch while hiking. At the border when re-entering Morocco the border patrolman was very amused by the big box of them in my trunk!
As a mexican I was totally amazed when I saw italian sodas using tunas hahahaha pellegrino is really good!! haha another mexican popular produce loved around the world ;) (along with chocolate, vanilla, tomatoes, avocado...)
I remember as a kid I was playing with my Cousin at my House and I will never forget him seeing my Mom’s cactus, then looking at the fruit, then proceeding to grab it with his hand. He cried for an hour straight I think.
It's pretty common in North Africa and around the Mediterranean in general, and people LOVE them. But it's a pretty different variety. They're very sweet with a distinctive taste and they're definitely a fruit. They have a thicker outer layer that can be pealed easily, you just cut a the extremities and make one cut in the skin from one side to the other, and it peals out easily. And the flesh of the fruit is yello and not purple.
As a cactus caretaker, hearing 'glochids' basically causes a winter soldier PTSD episode for me, from when I got my first opuntia. It's literally the same pain as fiberglass splinters. Absolutely brutal, but makes for a good challenge when repotting that teaches you to keep your distance, lol.
i have never heard "cactus caretaker" before and immediately it just gave me a vision of dumb lil cactus children running around getting into trouble and having to be reigned in lol
@@CharleneCTX I’m teaching my nephew to comfort my plants but to only barely brush my cactuses. As for my opuntias, I hope he heeds my warnings to only look at them and not touch.
As someone who grew up in the Desert Southwest, playing pretty much every day outdoors around dozens of types of cacti, I have to admit that I always get a nice little jolt of schadenfreude whenever I hear an adult Easterner discover the joys of the various types of cactus defenses for the first time. As kids we of course didn’t just play around such things, we inevitably also played with them, and in the process learned all about the character of each one and how to deal with the consequences. I can’t believe it took till the ‘80s for someone to publish a paper on using glue on prickly pear glochids; we were doing it in elementary school in the early ‘70s. Thank you Mr. Elmer. And then in junior high, when carrying a pick comb in your back pocket was a thing everyone was doing, that became quite useful when you picked up a section of cholla, usually stuck to your shoe and then deeply imbedded in your other calf with you next step. But the fruit were great, and I’ve always enjoyed prickly pear jelly, candy, juice, and later, margaritas.
The specimen in the video is probably a more wild/ornamental variety. Sometimes ornamental varieties are quite tasteless (bland/vegetable-like). Edible (marketed) varieties have bigger fruit and are very sweet and fruity. When removing the skin, the outer quarter inch is vegetable-y and mucilage-y, the inside is fruity and has a watermelon like texture, they're usually eaten fresh (chilled if possible) seeds can be swallowed (easier than spitting them). There's at least 3 varieties green, orange and red (purple). The flavor is slightly different between the varieties. It's common in some rural agricultural areas to plant it along borders since it provides a natural fence, delicious food and requires basically no resources.
@@dimakarakashev6281Thanks for the info, I didn't think of it as a fire retardant. Only recognized its value in stopping animals. My dad told me once that back in the day nobody would buy cactus pears in rural areas because it was so common, abundant and virtually free. Now it's becoming expensive as people became more urbanized and started to realize its health benefits.
I once had some ornamental prickly pear fruit. I did not find it sweet. It wasn't exactly bland. I would liken it to a cucumber flavor. Was quite tasty. Perfect for spring green salad garnish if de-seeded and diced.
Here in Mexico I used to go to pick "tunas" with my cousins and my uncle. Some of us would buy cowhide gloves or just grab them with a bunch of newspaper as a glove and fill 19 liters buckets,then we brush off the small spikes rubbing it with more newspaper, make a vertical cut, peel it grabbing both sides of the skin and eat the juicy sweet fruit. But you shouldn't eat a lot or you would get constipated by the seeds.
I remember when I visited Mexico one year. I was walking down a dirt road with my sister and grandma. We suddenly stopped next to one of these plants. She took the fruit off and peeled it herself, by hand. Gave both me and my sister one. It looked like a flower bud covered with slime. I ate it and I thought it was so good. I never knew flowers could taste good. Too bad I never came back during that season.
ur grandma was used to the pricks then, i have an uncle who has thic skin palms on his hands and cuz of that, he grabs the cacti and nopales like nothing
@@Nell-r0se its evolution, or well, adaptation, like in the philipines theres a village of people who have adapted to stay under water for up to 15-20 minutes
Been harvesting these for a minute here in Vegas where they're easy to come by and I can grab a hundred at a time. 1. Pick em with some slip joint pliers and cutters 2. Cut em in half, holding with fork 3. Use spoon to remove contents I can process maybe 2-3 per minute this way. I dump all the innerds into a jar, seal it up and let it ferment for a couple days. Prickly pear wine is good stuff.
As a Mexican I didn’t realize how many people thought eating cactus was weird my neighborhood literally has a bunch and I have one in my backyard so we can eat cactus whenever we want
Southern US as well, the things are everywhere. Jams, jellies, and (according to a younger uncle of mine) apparently the tunas are very good in drinks.
@@faithnfire4769 as a fruit, they are very good, take my word for it. There's also 2 versions of this fruit, a green one with big seeds in them and the one shown in the video. They have different flavors but are tasty.
Ah yes "Nopalitos con huevos" OR "Nopalitos en salsa Roja" Nopales (Cactus) in Mexico is a native dish cooked very common everyday. Local groceries like Tom Thumb and Wal Mart sell this product very well.. especially in diverse communities. Tunas(Prickly Pear) is used now in many commercial businesses like fruit stands and flavoring your margaritas .
Just to clear something up, I don't know if you're from Mexico or not but nopal and cactus are not interchangeable words. Nopales are a type of cactus plant, yeah, but nopal doesn't mean cactus nor is it the word for cactus in Spanish, that would be in fact the same: "cactus". Just that, hope you're doing alright!
@FreddieHg37 Cuctus/Cacti is a species of plant. Nopal/es is used in reference to the Cacti/us pad, but it's actual origin of "nopal" was term the indigenous used. Not sure where you're getting that those two words are not related when they are relevant and nopal is derived from the plant Cacti/us. That's just basic world botany, not based on origin of country or chef expertise lmao. Sorry but basic research could have saved you from this one.
As an egyptian, we also have a kind of prickly pear. The easiest way i know how to cut it is wearing gloves, you simply cut of the bottom and top and then you make a shallow vertical cut and then you’ll be able to remove the outer skin easily leaving the edible part only, Ps. I honestly enjoy eating the seeds of these things, my family can’t handle it but i’ll easily eat a dozen a day.
That's the way to peel them off, fam Slicing it directly from the plant is a sure way to stingy hell if you forget to take away a tiny patch of skin and also you will throw away significant amounts of flesh from it. And as far as I've watched, those aren't plump enough- regular peruvian tunas are symmetrically round rather than looking like prickly gourds. I'd drench that neighbor's cactus once in a while.
Exactly, we do the same in Palestine, the skin comes off very easily. I've never seen this purple variety though, the ones we eat are kind of orange colored. They are delightful and sweet, and you just eat the seeds with it, and they certainly do not taste "purple." 😂
My grocery store on the little island of Isla Mujeres has a dedicated employee to scrape the stickers off the fresh nopales but you can purchase them completely sliced & cleaned over by the other cooled vegetables too (my choice so far but now considering the fresh paddles.
I remember being told a story many years ago about how fruit in the grocery store was wrapped in a tissue paper. There was a lady that would always come in and take the paper from the fruit to use as toilet paper. The person telling me the story was morbidly amused when a shipment of prickly pears came in one day wrapped in said tissue paper. That seemed to break the lady of her bad habits.
@@automaton2953 in the neighborhood of the great depression. Also was a rural area in which many used the pages of an old Sears catalog in an outhouse. Toilet paper at that time was a luxury when luxuries were not sought after.
I am from Tunisia and I was surprised to learn that this plant is originated from the American continent. In my country this cactus ins almost endemic and you can see thousands of plants in every countryside, farmers use it to separate different parcels of lands. Besides, we have a different variant with yellow-orange fruit which tastes very sweet! It's called "Barbary Figue" or "Indian Figue" in my country.
it is. that fruit from ancient Opus WAS a nopal most likely. ancient egypt and greece and maybe even ancient rome was in contact with the americas. there are so many coincidences and cases just like this "mysterious" plant from opus. cactus that bear fruit would almost immediatly have been traded/exchanged between newly connected cultures. for sure. it is just that the "official" archeological consensus says otherwise. instead of using this "plant from opus" as evidence for possible contact/trade etc between the americas and africa/europe, they use the "fact" of when the americas were "officialy" discovered by europe, as an argument to refute evidence like that "plant of opus"... just like with religion or government you just can not question the "establishment" anymore, wich makes archeology hardly a science anymore. it is sad.
Can confirm. Mexican skin is invincible, and cannot be pierced by cacti thorns. This is proved by my mom who doesnt care about the thorns and goes full in when shes preparing nopales.
My best assumption is that the way the app works is by selling this data to advertisers and stores so they can better sell you shit and make you waste your money more. I'm ready to hear about the scandal when people lose their accounts online because of a security breach on that app.
I'm mexican and Tuna season is one of my favorites, you can buy them in the market or already peeled on carts on the streets. But my dad is an expert peeler and he's taught me the best technique (which a lot of street vendors also use): after washing them (store bought come with less or no spikes but at home you can just run water over it and squeeze some soap with a sponge without touching the fruit and rinse it), you place them in a cutting board. With a fork, you pinch it on the side lengthwise, then with the knife you cut the top and bottom part of the fruit. Next, you can make a slit or slice the skin from top to bottom (parallel to the fork). Then with the knife, while holding the fruit with the fork, you lift a little of the skin and push it with the knife to "roll it" until the skin all around has come off. Then you lift the fork and remove the remaining part of the skin. This fruit is delicious and oh so fresh.
The first wild edible I ever ate were prickly pear fruit because they are everywhere in southern California. Many of the local grocery stores sell the paddles since it is part of Mexican cuisine.
I love to imagine walking down the sidewalk one day and seeing a random man with a pair of tongs and a giant bowl picking prickly pears from a random persons yard.
Come to New Mexico. You'll see the fruit Everywhere! Seeing someone picking the fruit may be less common cause most people can't be bothered with the effort to clean/peal them but no one is gonna look at you funny if you do. But if you Do decide to go harvesting: stay away from the ones on private property or used on a businesses landscaping unless you ask first and don't be surprised if someone stops to ask you what you're making with them and if they can buy some when you're done. lol
@@guardian35 We do the same thing in my country (Cyprus). Sadly most people don’t know how to peel them so they buy them peeled from the grocery store, or just buy them with their skin and peel them at home. Sadly, in the city the cactus is not so common and people don’t like to pick them up if its not theirs, which also takes away the pleasure of eating many of them unlike in the countryside. Fun fact: A very easy way to harvest them is to take a large wooden plank or long wooden stick, and nail a metal can of food into it. Then, you put the fruit in the metal can, and try to snap it off from the cactus. What’s good with this method is that you can pick the ones that are high up on the plant that nobody bothers catching 😂.
Certain plants being more acidic in the early morning was actually how CAM (Crassulacean acid metabolism) photosynthesizers were discovered! This is a class of plants, including the prickly pear, that store CO2 at night as malic acid, (giving a sour taste at night) and then transforms it to sugars when the sun rises and allows for photosynthesis. These plants should be harvested after a few hours of sunlight ideally mid morning to early afternoon when sugar content will be highest. The plants do this so they can close up their gas exchanging pores during the day to conserve water and only open them at night when transpirational water loss will be lower. Compared to normal photosynthesis these plants grow slower as they can only store so much CO2 during the night so their photosynthetic potential is more limited, however this adaptation allows them to survive in climates and have morphologies that other normal C3 or even C4 photosynthesizers cannot pull off
This type of cactus can be found everywhere in Sicily. Now that I think about it, we call them something like "Indian ficus", probably because they come from Mexico The inside of the leaves is very similar to Aloe vera, and it's a great antinflamatory to treat cuts or burns on your skin
In Spain you see people picking them from the side of the road all the time. Adam also kinda understated how easy it is to grow that plant. It's actually a pain in the ass to kill, because if you leave any leaves on the ground there's a decent chance it'll start growing again.
@@morristgh My grandparents had an old one that I never remember seeing fruit on. Guess we weren't there at the right times of year. The chickens loved to hide in it though, good hawk protection
As a Mexican I can tell you that the real term for the paddle is "penca"... We call nopal (from the nahuatl "nopalli") to the whole plant. Excellent review 👍
Great research, I'm Mexican myself and I love when people take their time to research about any culture without asumming based on stereotypes. Keep up the good work!
Hey in New Mexico where prickly pear grow we pick them with tongs and rub them in the dirt or sandy dirt whichever they are growing in this actually does get all the needles off even the really tiny ones ~ u just rotate it around and rub in the dirt over ever part that is prickly ~ it seems tiresome but it is not it only takes a few seconds but rub lightly u know to not break the skin then we cut off the ends and open them up take out the seeds and dry the skin with the flesh on it in the sun or a dehydrator then it is a dried carry with you snack that is sooooooooo good! try it! ~
The seedy part is still delicious and easy to pass, we would just slice the fruit and have it with the seed, since it is so soft and easy to eat. Ice cold these are very refreshing in the summer, a sort of blend between a cucumber and melon
Nice looking tunas. And those red ones are very sweet and more rare to find since the most common are green. One tip to harvest tunas, you can use thick fabric gloves to pull them with your hands and rub them with raw hide. That´s quite widespread here in Mexico and most of the time you buy them with the skin still on. Oh and those nopales...man, try frying them with beef or chicken and some onions or next to a steak in a grill, just add some salt...they´re delicious and a good source of fiber and are also good if you have digestion problems.
I ate this fruit once when i was like 6 years old, when i saw it i was like "Oooh mom can i try this?" and she bought me it, safe to say i was full of prickles however still to this day i miss the taste.
To peel the tuna I recommend chopping the top and bottom so it's barrel shaped, then you do 1 long cut top to bottom and peel off the now rectangle shaped peel in 1 piece. To cook them it takes a long time, they change from bright green to browny-green, military-camouflage kind of green when fully cooked, either just put a couple of them with salt and pepper on the grill, or also boiled, chopped, coupled with oregano and panela or mozzarella cheese, any soft texture soft flavour cheese will do great, but really cook them until they change color
We eat this AAAAALOOOTTT in Egypt, it is a very special summer fruit we usually call it in arabic what translates to “spiky figs” They’re sweet and super super delicious. The seedy core is super tasty and they grow to different colors fuchsia, yellow, orange and green
They're very common late summer snacks in southern Italy too. The cactus grows everywhere and we call it "fico d'india" or "fhicundianu", which translates to "indian fig". My dad and i harvest these in September using a spear and a knife and they're absolutely delicious. Sweeter than a watermelon, but not nauseatingly sweet like a regular fig.
@@NurHamdyhello fellow Mediterranean friend! if you're very lucky you'll come across a white fruit once in a while. Those are the most delicious, too bad they're very rare
Food at the grocery store is trying to kill you, read the ingedients. Any time you can process a high electrolyte food that does not have pesiticides on it (at least that you know of) do it! Great video very informative. I wish I would have watched it before trying to skin my neighbors prickly pears today. I did the whole "just hold inbetween the spikes" method and it does not work as mentioned. I later took a propane torch to the rest of them and proceeded to use a cheese cloth to make an excellent tea. Not too sweet and very thirst quenching.
I'm from Tucson and we have tons of these things around here, so a lot of our snacks for tourists at airports is different ways of eating prickly pears. My personal favorite is a type of Turkish delight flavored with prickly pears.
I love Tuna & Nopales. The two ways my mom makes them is Pico de Gallo with cut pieces of Nopales. And my favorite is grilling it with a little salt. Perfect combo with grilling carne asada.
I live in middle east, this plant grow everywhere. my dad used to cut the sides scar it from the middle peel a little and let me pick the edible part. FYI u can use a good quality gardening glove, and burning it change its flavor.
Growing up in Jordan we ate these all the time, they sell them on carts onn the streets and fruit markets- peeled and ready to eat, since the seeds are very hard; unchewable; you either swallow or spit, swallowing too many will make you constipated. The flavour is delicious, like a very sweet passionfruit. I honestly can't remember when was the last time I had these, I miss them!
I saw my grandma peel one of these things once by hand and have been pretty brave around them considering there's a lot more spines than I gave it credit for. Her method: make a verticle slice from top to bottom. Not too deep just enough to reach the fruit flesh. You then use any part of the knife to lift up one side of the skin, stick your finger under and then run it up and down separating the skin from the fruit. If it's ripe enough the skin should just peel away in one piece with minimal fruit loss. 👌
@@jockin Never said it was a defense. Also all plants take flavor from their food source a common example of this is sweet onions taking the nutrients from their surroundings and changing the very way the plant tastes so yes any carnivorous plant should as well taste of bugs as for the soda part of the flavor i believe it is due to the digestive enzymes the plant produces to break down the proteins of the bugs they catch
Did Ol' Dirty Bastard change his rap name again? I thought Dirt McGurt was stupid, now he's apparently this Adam Ragusea guy. Aw baby I like it RAAAAAAWWWW
From someone who has lived in Mexico for decades: Peeling a prickley pears is easier than peeling a pineapple. The skin comes off easily. Just peel it like you would an evil orange. Take a fork to impale that prickley pear and hold it in place. Cut the poles, then make an incision on the skin and use the knife to peal. Takes like 5 seconds. The seeds are perfectly digestible. That's all.
In algeria the fruit is literally called "hindi" Wich means Indian For unknown reasons Edit : I got more info it's actually called "indian fig" but still for unknown reasons
The glue method is good for stubborn splinters. For stuff like fiberglass and nettles I will press some duct tape over it and peel it off. Do it a few times peeling from different directions. Does a good job getting it out.
@@enby-ralsei opuntia humifusa is actually a native in connecticut, rhode island, mass, and new hampshire (among other non new england states). It's also easy to grow other species like fragilis and polyacantha. I have a bunch in my garden here in mass.
@@arminpetschelt8127 Yes I have. In Brewster MA they live up on the dunes a few hundred feet from the water. I assume they live in other sparsely forested areas too.
How you amused me with this video! :) From South Africa. Prickly pears (as these very sweet cactus fruit is called here), are something we have great respect for... and love very much! Good gloves are the best barrier to pick and process them. Tons of ways to consume them! Great jam! They are seasonally sold in shops- thorns and all in boxes of 6 or 12.
@@henryjohnson2164 some people are so ignorant ahhaaha dont understand how these people cant see that its for the video, he said in part of the video that the one he used was down the street... im sure he sees them alot
Everything around you that you think of as normal is really interesting if you focus on it enough, so much so that you just spent 10 minutes watching some guy talk about this for you ordinary plant
I ate a ton of "tuna" while living in Peru, and we always just ate the seeds! Yes, they are way too hard to chew, so you would kinda chew the pulp around them, but them swallow both pulp and seeds when done chewing.
I live in Az, so when we hike and find prickly pears, my family takes them and we use rocks to rub the spikes off and we eat them on the hike. It's lit
Good old, omnivores paradox. Forcing omnivores to make a choice of "is that edible" and "how desperate am i to eat that" but hey we got wine and cheese from that paradox forcing us to eat rotten fruit and milk
Here in Mexico we ate those a lot. We hold them with a fork, then proceed to cut the edges aproximatedly 1 cm thick, then we made a longitudinal cut and with the same knife open the skin and then simply extract the fruit. If you keep them in the freezer they taste better . My favorites are the pale green variety
"Mom, the man with the glasses is back at that cactus plant again."
Hahahahhahahaha. I like that
"Don't worry, son. Just pour him a glass of white wine and he'll go away."
@@waaahl *proceeds to lick the white wine off the road
Exactly hahaha xDD
"again?"
"yeah, this time with a knife and a camera"
"he's doing threats against the cactus"
"call police?
"sure"
I once made prickly pear and lemon marmalade. Delicious.
Recipe?
PLEASE. That sounds wonderful and I need it.
לא ציפיתי לראות אותך פה חחח
Prickly pear lemonade is so delicious!
@David Bustamante Sorry 'bout that, it was a misclick on my phone.
Forbidden fruit... *Wait a minute, his name is Adam*
Hol' the fuck up
Hol the fuck up
Ho the fuck up
I think we opened Pandora's box
Hol’ up
As an Arizonan, it was really interesting hearing you describe all this to an audience who’s never experienced the Southwest firsthand. The descriptions of how the spines feel while they’re in you is startlingly accurate, even though I never thought of how I’d describe it since to me it’s just how a cactus spine feels.
Damn, i know that too, we have those cactus here in Europe too, in France, when i was a teen, i walk in the grapes fields, obviously the soil is acid so they pop up everywhere like mushrooms. And yeah, i hold it bare hands, eat it and feel bad as my hands itching but. Man this fruit is delicious
I'm in Australia, cactuses were grown as ornaments including the prickly pears. My office's parking lot grown them and one day I picked some because I see they were sold at my local grocer and wanted to know what they tasted like. An hour after picking the fruit, my fingertips were on fire. That was my first and only time getting impaled by a cactus.
Florida has prickly pears in some places they’re bastards
the startlingly accurate description was 'straight from the fires of hades'
"Honey, why is the neighbor eating our cactus?"
"Honey, why is the neighbor burning our cactus?"
I can only imagine jacks films saying this.
Maybe he is Mexican dear
@@pedroarjona6996, y'know? 😂 if I didn't know he was Italian, maybe. From a distance. 🤔
"Honey, why is our neighbor screaming 'die, glow kids! die!'?"
I tried prickly pear for the first time a few years ago. "Purple" is the perfect way to describe how it tastes. I would also say similar to dragonfruit
Dragon fruit are generally sweeter and the seeds can be crunched through
@@massivredboi2646 he did say similar
@@massivredboi2646 well, avocado pitts can also technically be crunched through
it's "ROKAKAKA" get it? No? Ok
Both are from a cactus, so no surprise they taste similar, i don't know in other places but in Mexico i find tunas (prickly pear) to be sweeter.
Cactus : Has sharp spikes to protect itself
Human : *Finally, some good fucking food*
They used to be quite popular in the Mediterranean (obv. as an invasive species); now they've become somewhat fashionable again in the super markets, and I have been meaning to give those a try from the grocery store.
If something goes through that much effort to prevent being eaten, there has to be a good reason for it, right?
@@RaspK where are you from in Mediterranean
Another underrated comment.
We probably learned that it's safe to eat by watching tortoises. Tortoises can eat the with the skin. Also you can eat stinging nettle which is arguably worse than a cactus because is has hair like needles that basically act like fiber glass on your skin. The trick is to grab the leave non needle side fold it onto itself then roll it into a ball which crushes the thorns. You can then eat it raw.
Mexican during Independence Day here: This fruit, and base cactus, are part of the national crest, so it has a sacred-symbol status in our culture. We eat tunas during the rainy season (summer) as they pop up in bunches and are fresh and available on the supermarket. Tuna + Tequila ? Excellent channel!!! (Nopal taco: extra credit)
But... why though? Isn't that the whole point of eating it? The heterogeneity of your throat being stabbed combined with the taste of the sweet cactus is what brings the experience together and it is something that me and my family aren't going to give up soon. RIP Timmy you will be missed. Not for choking to death but because you're dead to us for giving up on the family.
Its good tho
Oh my god i didint even realize it was a joke
Wash it down with white wine!
HETROGENEITY
Well done Kelton, well done
"this very angry plant for human consumption"
Yes I needed to hear this.
Plants vs zombies in a nutshell
The snack that bites you back
@@AbyssalLagaiacrusWithAnExtraA nice one
@@AbyssalLagaiacrusWithAnExtraA Cactus
Well it exist another angry plant that looks really edible "Hippomane mancinella" or "manzanilla de la muerte" that its fruits looks like apples and are deadly. The tree is so poisonous that if you burn it the smoke are that toxic that can make you blind.
Cactus: “haha we have spikes, no human will eat us”
Adam, the madlad: “haha glochids go 🔥 “
FIRE FIRE!!!
yum yum prickly pear
Chili: "First time?"
*laughs in mexican*
Early Mezo-American Pyros: [muffled cackling]
I live in Arizona, we have prickly Pear EVERYWHERE. I remember going out with my dad, step mom and brother when I was little to pick some of the fruit to make jelly. It was a fun experience! We had a gas stove we used to burn off the thorns.
If you have a prickly pear near you you can get fruit off of, I recommend making juice or jelly just be careful with the thorns! They can hurt!
"Drink cactus juice! It'll Quench ya! Nothing's Quenchier! Its the Quenchiest!"
-Sokka
wise words spoken by a wise man
oh god XD
"A giant mushroom! I wonder if its friendly!"
“That’s one too many syllables, but” * yeets sokka out of the building *
lol
“Yeah police, the guy is trying to eat our cactus again”
“Yes, he keeps chucking to himself and muttering, “Why I- I- season my mou- mouth,” please get here quick officer”
@@Pihyu thats the first time i laughed so hard at a yt comment
Hay güey, órale vámonos la güera nos vio
-Residents of the empty lot
Lol
yknow after watching avatar I think I'm good when it comes to cacti
I do
Everyone has watched avatar
👀
I forgot you existed.
Cactus juice is the quenchiest!!
In south Italy we have "fichi d'india" and they are pretty similar. They come in three different colors, green, red and orange and each of them have a different flavour. My favorite is the green one, that has a cucumbery melony green taste. They are great to eat during hot summer days!
@Marouan Fares As-salaam Alaykum. Kulshi mzien?
So glad to see a Moroccan here. In Morocco you can get these (l'hindi) from street vendors, or just pick them yourself. They are very tasty. I loved them, but the seeds were hard as granite! I visited a friend in Spain near Ronda, and there I picked a bunch while hiking. At the border when re-entering Morocco the border patrolman was very amused by the big box of them in my trunk!
As a mexican I was totally amazed when I saw italian sodas using tunas hahahaha pellegrino is really good!! haha another mexican popular produce loved around the world ;) (along with chocolate, vanilla, tomatoes, avocado...)
Same in Spain! I think is something common to mediterranean countries
In Morocco we call it "hndia" which is the feminine word of "something from india"
“Taste like purple”
*ah, yes I also love the taste of purple*
I normally prefer the taste of metallic green
lulu would like this
Anything brown is tasty
@@pooshmcfly1525 tree bark 🤤
@@e_ly2137 Master Chief Flavour
I remember as a kid I was playing with my Cousin at my House and I will never forget him seeing my Mom’s cactus, then looking at the fruit, then proceeding to grab it with his hand. He cried for an hour straight I think.
RIPPPP
That’s sound like hell
At one point i walked into a cactus and i pulled the thorns out the came back to the plant and beat it with a stick
F
Same except but we were at a ranch
"Mom, kylo ren stealing cactus again"
You live up to your name.
I think he said it was in an abandoned lot where a house had burned down, so that means no one owned the cactus.
@@cuy50 I didn’t realize how humorless people were till I started looking at RUclips comments😂😂
Dylan Wilson not every bodies a comedy genius, some people just aren’t as quick as others.
@@michaelzhang9806 some people aren’t quick at all
It's pretty common in North Africa and around the Mediterranean in general, and people LOVE them. But it's a pretty different variety.
They're very sweet with a distinctive taste and they're definitely a fruit. They have a thicker outer layer that can be pealed easily, you just cut a the extremities and make one cut in the skin from one side to the other, and it peals out easily. And the flesh of the fruit is yello and not purple.
Exactly, Mexicans always do that way( the easiest way)
As a cactus caretaker, hearing 'glochids' basically causes a winter soldier PTSD episode for me, from when I got my first opuntia. It's literally the same pain as fiberglass splinters. Absolutely brutal, but makes for a good challenge when repotting that teaches you to keep your distance, lol.
i have never heard "cactus caretaker" before and immediately it just gave me a vision of dumb lil cactus children running around getting into trouble and having to be reigned in lol
Glochids
because screw you im toxic
When I was a kid, my mother had a small bowl with rocks and a few really small cactus plants. Guess who was dumb enough to want to "pet" them?
@@CharleneCTX I’m teaching my nephew to comfort my plants but to only barely brush my cactuses. As for my opuntias, I hope he heeds my warnings to only look at them and not touch.
@@Templarfreak Bro giving me flashbacks of when I got fiberglass rubbed into my legs... glue can only help you so much then...
As a Mexican I really loved that you made your research in Tunas and Nopales
He's such a cool guy in that respect. He loves researching stuff.
Si
Yet he didnt give any credit to mexican culture whatsoever
@@despicableone4495 why ? its about the food ! and its the world over not just in mexico !
“What this fruit”
“Oh it’s a purple kiwi, you should squeeze it it’s very fuzzy”
That’s how you lose a friend
Fucking gold.
Underrated
"Yeah, just rip it out and eat it raw. The skin is where the flavor's at."
Underrated..... youtube should have rewards like reddit
@@tanushbhansali youtube should have upvote-downvotes system like reddit so we could downvotes the likebaiter
As someone who grew up in the Desert Southwest, playing pretty much every day outdoors around dozens of types of cacti, I have to admit that I always get a nice little jolt of schadenfreude whenever I hear an adult Easterner discover the joys of the various types of cactus defenses for the first time. As kids we of course didn’t just play around such things, we inevitably also played with them, and in the process learned all about the character of each one and how to deal with the consequences. I can’t believe it took till the ‘80s for someone to publish a paper on using glue on prickly pear glochids; we were doing it in elementary school in the early ‘70s. Thank you Mr. Elmer. And then in junior high, when carrying a pick comb in your back pocket was a thing everyone was doing, that became quite useful when you picked up a section of cholla, usually stuck to your shoe and then deeply imbedded in your other calf with you next step. But the fruit were great, and I’ve always enjoyed prickly pear jelly, candy, juice, and later, margaritas.
The specimen in the video is probably a more wild/ornamental variety. Sometimes ornamental varieties are quite tasteless (bland/vegetable-like). Edible (marketed) varieties have bigger fruit and are very sweet and fruity. When removing the skin, the outer quarter inch is vegetable-y and mucilage-y, the inside is fruity and has a watermelon like texture, they're usually eaten fresh (chilled if possible) seeds can be swallowed (easier than spitting them). There's at least 3 varieties green, orange and red (purple). The flavor is slightly different between the varieties. It's common in some rural agricultural areas to plant it along borders since it provides a natural fence, delicious food and requires basically no resources.
It also stops fires and Humans. Best fence ever.
@@dimakarakashev6281Thanks for the info, I didn't think of it as a fire retardant. Only recognized its value in stopping animals. My dad told me once that back in the day nobody would buy cactus pears in rural areas because it was so common, abundant and virtually free. Now it's becoming expensive as people became more urbanized and started to realize its health benefits.
I once had some ornamental prickly pear fruit. I did not find it sweet. It wasn't exactly bland. I would liken it to a cucumber flavor. Was quite tasty. Perfect for spring green salad garnish if de-seeded and diced.
Here in Mexico I used to go to pick "tunas" with my cousins and my uncle. Some of us would buy cowhide gloves or just grab them with a bunch of newspaper as a glove and fill 19 liters buckets,then we brush off the small spikes rubbing it with more newspaper, make a vertical cut, peel it grabbing both sides of the skin and eat the juicy sweet fruit. But you shouldn't eat a lot or you would get constipated by the seeds.
A nice syrup can be made from them
adam going "oh lordy, there's a thorn, there's a thorn--! nah, i'm just kidding" is so peak dad.
Well, I believe he's mentioned in other videos that he has kids, so he is a dad.
I remember when I visited Mexico one year. I was walking down a dirt road with my sister and grandma. We suddenly stopped next to one of these plants. She took the fruit off and peeled it herself, by hand. Gave both me and my sister one. It looked like a flower bud covered with slime. I ate it and I thought it was so good. I never knew flowers could taste good. Too bad I never came back during that season.
ur grandma was used to the pricks then, i have an uncle who has thic skin palms on his hands and cuz of that, he grabs the cacti and nopales like nothing
@@juanarredondo9763 fucking what? Lmao I didn't know people did that
@@Nell-r0se its evolution, or well, adaptation, like in the philipines theres a village of people who have adapted to stay under water for up to 15-20 minutes
Mexican grandmas do it all the time
I've seen old Hispanic people just tanking insect stings while eating them, years of that pain will make you numb to it
Been harvesting these for a minute here in Vegas where they're easy to come by and I can grab a hundred at a time.
1. Pick em with some slip joint pliers and cutters
2. Cut em in half, holding with fork
3. Use spoon to remove contents
I can process maybe 2-3 per minute this way. I dump all the innerds into a jar, seal it up and let it ferment for a couple days. Prickly pear wine is good stuff.
As a Mexican I didn’t realize how many people thought eating cactus was weird my neighborhood literally has a bunch and I have one in my backyard so we can eat cactus whenever we want
I dont even eat it yet i wasnt surprised, it has fruit, its most lokely eatable
My mom loves cactus fried with eggs. They're great
you forget how hard it is for people to get them but with practice you can eat them relatively easily XD
Southern US as well, the things are everywhere. Jams, jellies, and (according to a younger uncle of mine) apparently the tunas are very good in drinks.
@@faithnfire4769 as a fruit, they are very good, take my word for it. There's also 2 versions of this fruit, a green one with big seeds in them and the one shown in the video. They have different flavors but are tasty.
*"Yup That Tasted Purple."*
Nice. ^-^
lulu broken pls nerf
It never does since that horrid little ddemon is permabanned for me
Nice, am not the only one who thought of that quote
Adoribus! Delightify!
“I do very much like it raw”
oh I see how it is, I see
My mom also does like it that way
*Ol' Dirty Bastard has entered the chat*
@@neilomac OH NOOOO
@@suskysulky what
@@kencarson666 as you can probably tell
Ah yes "Nopalitos con huevos" OR "Nopalitos en salsa Roja"
Nopales (Cactus) in Mexico is a native dish cooked very common everyday. Local groceries like Tom Thumb and Wal Mart sell this product very well.. especially in diverse communities. Tunas(Prickly Pear) is used now in many commercial businesses like fruit stands and flavoring your margaritas .
Hmmm tunas.
Just to clear something up, I don't know if you're from Mexico or not but nopal and cactus are not interchangeable words. Nopales are a type of cactus plant, yeah, but nopal doesn't mean cactus nor is it the word for cactus in Spanish, that would be in fact the same: "cactus".
Just that, hope you're doing alright!
@FreddieHg37 Cuctus/Cacti is a species of plant. Nopal/es is used in reference to the Cacti/us pad, but it's actual origin of "nopal" was term the indigenous used. Not sure where you're getting that those two words are not related when they are relevant and nopal is derived from the plant Cacti/us. That's just basic world botany, not based on origin of country or chef expertise lmao. Sorry but basic research could have saved you from this one.
As an egyptian, we also have a kind of prickly pear. The easiest way i know how to cut it is wearing gloves, you simply cut of the bottom and top and then you make a shallow vertical cut and then you’ll be able to remove the outer skin easily leaving the edible part only, Ps. I honestly enjoy eating the seeds of these things, my family can’t handle it but i’ll easily eat a dozen a day.
That's the way to peel them off, fam
Slicing it directly from the plant is a sure way to stingy hell if you forget to take away a tiny patch of skin and also you will throw away significant amounts of flesh from it. And as far as I've watched, those aren't plump enough- regular peruvian tunas are symmetrically round rather than looking like prickly gourds. I'd drench that neighbor's cactus once in a while.
Exactly, we do the same in Palestine, the skin comes off very easily. I've never seen this purple variety though, the ones we eat are kind of orange colored. They are delightful and sweet, and you just eat the seeds with it, and they certainly do not taste "purple."
😂
i was about to leave the same comment man, they Rock ! one of the most tasty things ive ever tried in my life
@@PalestinianLad We do the same thing in Israel, just peel off the prickly skin and enjoy.
Same in Lebanon!
What I learned:
Owie owie owie owie owie owie
P u r p l e
Cutting the angry purple pear looks like a crime scene.
I find this a very underrated comment
His name is Adam and he ate the frog Bibb friit
Lol
Lmao
Very hard he also said
Me who lives in Arizona: "Its free snack estate"
tasty snacc
I imagine!
Very tasty
@@summaryart9091 It is! I did it yesterday!
@@PinaHyena nice
My grocery store on the little island of Isla Mujeres has a dedicated employee to scrape the stickers off the fresh nopales but you can purchase them completely sliced & cleaned over by the other cooled vegetables too (my choice so far but now considering the fresh paddles.
I remember being told a story many years ago about how fruit in the grocery store was wrapped in a tissue paper. There was a lady that would always come in and take the paper from the fruit to use as toilet paper. The person telling me the story was morbidly amused when a shipment of prickly pears came in one day wrapped in said tissue paper. That seemed to break the lady of her bad habits.
Why not just use toilet paper?
@@automaton2953 in the neighborhood of the great depression. Also was a rural area in which many used the pages of an old Sears catalog in an outhouse. Toilet paper at that time was a luxury when luxuries were not sought after.
@@travissmith2211 i mean what else are you going to do with last weeks newspaper? Old news
OH GOD NO
@@Green24152 oh my goodness
"I'm just gonna spike mine with a little-"
White wine?
"Tequila"
*Oh...*
@@vlc-cosplayer I thought it was basically just Mexican vodka.
he said before already he prefers red over white for drinking anyway lol
@@EmptyCheetosBag kinda both
"Why I season the thorns, not the fruit"
uh oh
sup omicron
Hey, It's AlphaPlace if you remember me (I'm the owner of the server you joined when going through minecraft versions on the first stream)
@@danielalp6871 you havent uploaded any and he has, He has almost 21,428.55 x the amount of subscribers you have.
What a surprise, hypixel youtuber on a food channel comment section
I am from Tunisia and I was surprised to learn that this plant is originated from the American continent. In my country this cactus ins almost endemic and you can see thousands of plants in every countryside, farmers use it to separate different parcels of lands. Besides, we have a different variant with yellow-orange fruit which tastes very sweet! It's called "Barbary Figue" or "Indian Figue" in my country.
it is.
that fruit from ancient Opus WAS a nopal most likely.
ancient egypt and greece and maybe even ancient rome was in contact with the americas.
there are so many coincidences and cases just like this "mysterious" plant from opus.
cactus that bear fruit would almost immediatly have been traded/exchanged between newly connected cultures. for sure.
it is just that the "official" archeological consensus says otherwise.
instead of using this "plant from opus" as evidence for possible contact/trade etc between the americas and africa/europe,
they use the "fact" of when the americas were "officialy" discovered by europe,
as an argument to refute evidence like that "plant of opus"...
just like with religion or government you just can not question the "establishment" anymore,
wich makes archeology hardly a science anymore.
it is sad.
This guy: how to eat cactus without poking yourself
Me: *laughs in Mexican*
Can confirm. Mexican skin is invincible, and cannot be pierced by cacti thorns. This is proved by my mom who doesnt care about the thorns and goes full in when shes preparing nopales.
Engineer gaming
everyone else: laughs at mexicans.
Laughs in arizonian
Only the chancla can hurt us
Adam: How to eat cactus without impaling yourself
Sokka: "Drink cactus juice. It'll quench ya. Nothing is quenchier. It's the quenchiest!"
Moments minutes before disaster
Man i wish i could be as high as he was from that cactus
Plot twist: he got pricked from eating a cactus and can't say the cr sound right.
@@knightplatinum9676 take peyote
Huh
"Its scans your email for eligible receipts," ah yes, an app that scans your email and is definitely not stealing your information
Ikr made me very uncomfortable
Not really stealing if you're willingly participating in it scanning your purchases
@@Shadowonshadows so you're just helping it steal from you
@@imbored7579 "here you go app, steal my information."
My best assumption is that the way the app works is by selling this data to advertisers and stores so they can better sell you shit and make you waste your money more. I'm ready to hear about the scandal when people lose their accounts online because of a security breach on that app.
I used to make prickly pear preserves with my grandparents in texas, definitely worth a try
Ah yes something more important than online class, how to eat a cactus.
I got 20 minutes let's go
lol right
based
You guys having class in january? KEKW
@@johntucker3695 lucky I still have 45 ;-;
I'm mexican and Tuna season is one of my favorites, you can buy them in the market or already peeled on carts on the streets. But my dad is an expert peeler and he's taught me the best technique (which a lot of street vendors also use): after washing them (store bought come with less or no spikes but at home you can just run water over it and squeeze some soap with a sponge without touching the fruit and rinse it), you place them in a cutting board. With a fork, you pinch it on the side lengthwise, then with the knife you cut the top and bottom part of the fruit. Next, you can make a slit or slice the skin from top to bottom (parallel to the fork). Then with the knife, while holding the fruit with the fork, you lift a little of the skin and push it with the knife to "roll it" until the skin all around has come off. Then you lift the fork and remove the remaining part of the skin. This fruit is delicious and oh so fresh.
Son gratis en la temporada de verano hay mucho nopal
Deberías de poner un video
Sounds like you could do a great video of this! :)
I guess he is using another variety with thinner skin and more difficult to peel off.
I'm from South Italy and we use the exact same technique!
Can we just admire the smoothness of the transitions to the sponsors.
The first wild edible I ever ate were prickly pear fruit because they are everywhere in southern California. Many of the local grocery stores sell the paddles since it is part of Mexican cuisine.
"It tastes purple."
could NOT agree more.
Like a crunchy purple with a hint of danger because you're afraid if a spike someone grew inside the fruit and is going to kill you
Yeah the fruit is a food dye
I love to imagine walking down the sidewalk one day and seeing a random man with a pair of tongs and a giant bowl picking prickly pears from a random persons yard.
there's something very Xenophilius Lovegood about that description
Come to New Mexico. You'll see the fruit Everywhere!
Seeing someone picking the fruit may be less common cause most people can't be bothered with the effort to clean/peal them but no one is gonna look at you funny if you do.
But if you Do decide to go harvesting: stay away from the ones on private property or used on a businesses landscaping unless you ask first and don't be surprised if someone stops to ask you what you're making with them and if they can buy some when you're done. lol
@@guardian35 We do the same thing in my country (Cyprus). Sadly most people don’t know how to peel them so they buy them peeled from the grocery store, or just buy them with their skin and peel them at home. Sadly, in the city the cactus is not so common and people don’t like to pick them up if its not theirs, which also takes away the pleasure of eating many of them unlike in the countryside. Fun fact: A very easy way to harvest them is to take a large wooden plank or long wooden stick, and nail a metal can of food into it. Then, you put the fruit in the metal can, and try to snap it off from the cactus. What’s good with this method is that you can pick the ones that are high up on the plant that nobody bothers catching 😂.
You are describing my daily routine
With a bunch of cameras on tripods around him 😂
Her: what are we having for dinner?
Me: T U N A
In Ecuador South America is always called Tuna.
in perú it's also called tuna though
Also in Mexico.
Chile too 🇨🇱
Ponen el video como su las tunas mataran si no se preparan bien o algo asi XDDDDD
i love how you consistently casually refrence studies it is very cool and much appreicated :)
Every other human on this planet: How are you doing today
Adam: *glochid*
*glochid*
*glochid*
6:56 "Honey the homeless cacti eating man is back again"
not on our land xD
Certain plants being more acidic in the early morning was actually how CAM (Crassulacean acid metabolism) photosynthesizers were discovered! This is a class of plants, including the prickly pear, that store CO2 at night as malic acid, (giving a sour taste at night) and then transforms it to sugars when the sun rises and allows for photosynthesis. These plants should be harvested after a few hours of sunlight ideally mid morning to early afternoon when sugar content will be highest.
The plants do this so they can close up their gas exchanging pores during the day to conserve water and only open them at night when transpirational water loss will be lower. Compared to normal photosynthesis these plants grow slower as they can only store so much CO2 during the night so their photosynthetic potential is more limited, however this adaptation allows them to survive in climates and have morphologies that other normal C3 or even C4 photosynthesizers cannot pull off
Omg that's so cool!
Thanks, I learnt something today
🤓
@@sygneg7348 What else would a pepe-dork-moron comment with?
@@sygneg7348 This is cool. You just didn't pass high school!
This type of cactus can be found everywhere in Sicily. Now that I think about it, we call them something like "Indian ficus", probably because they come from Mexico
The inside of the leaves is very similar to Aloe vera, and it's a great antinflamatory to treat cuts or burns on your skin
It’s amazing in a tortilla with lime
Same here in tunisia
Imagine seeing a middle aged man picking cactus fruits from an abandoned house's garden
Thats when you turn around and run the other way.
Rookie, imagine yourself harvesting the cactus while being judged by the neighbors.
In Spain you see people picking them from the side of the road all the time. Adam also kinda understated how easy it is to grow that plant. It's actually a pain in the ass to kill, because if you leave any leaves on the ground there's a decent chance it'll start growing again.
@@morristgh
My grandparents had an old one that I never remember seeing fruit on. Guess we weren't there at the right times of year. The chickens loved to hide in it though, good hawk protection
@@DeRien8 nice!
As a Mexican I can tell you that the real term for the paddle is "penca"... We call nopal (from the nahuatl "nopalli") to the whole plant. Excellent review 👍
Great research, I'm Mexican myself and I love when people take their time to research about any culture without asumming based on stereotypes. Keep up the good work!
Yeah being mexican, I never really stopped to think about how weird eating Nopales must be to other cultures, it's stuff you just take for granted.
taco burrito taco
@@thekrampuselbananoquevivee9947 where
@@KableDev burrito taco? Quesadilla burrito taco taco enchilada!
@@thekrampuselbananoquevivee9947 WHERE
Hey in New Mexico where prickly pear grow we pick them with tongs and rub them in the dirt or sandy dirt whichever they are growing in this actually does get all the needles off even the really tiny ones ~ u just rotate it around and rub in the dirt over ever part that is prickly ~ it seems tiresome but it is not it only takes a few seconds but rub lightly u know to not break the skin then we cut off the ends and open them up take out the seeds and dry the skin with the flesh on it in the sun or a dehydrator then it is a dried carry with you snack that is sooooooooo good! try it! ~
The seedy part is still delicious and easy to pass, we would just slice the fruit and have it with the seed, since it is so soft and easy to eat. Ice cold these are very refreshing in the summer, a sort of blend between a cucumber and melon
"This video was brought to you by the Macon Redevelopment Council. Use offer code RAGUSEA for 10% off your first vacant lot."
I feel like this is a tragically underappreciated comment.
INVEST
@@SuzanneBaruch yes
"cactus juice, it'll quench ya"
"its the quenchiest"
ah yes, drunk sokka.
Nothings quenchier
He looks like Ford from gravity falls
A giant mushroom!
@@beefncheesepersonal I think high is more accurate
Nice looking tunas. And those red ones are very sweet and more rare to find since the most common are green. One tip to harvest tunas, you can use thick fabric gloves to pull them with your hands and rub them with raw hide. That´s quite widespread here in Mexico and most of the time you buy them with the skin still on. Oh and those nopales...man, try frying them with beef or chicken and some onions or next to a steak in a grill, just add some salt...they´re delicious and a good source of fiber and are also good if you have digestion problems.
"...And I do very much like it raw."
Me too Adam, Meee too.
:)
:I
. . . : O
Cover your eyes children, this comment is _naughty_
@@kottonkandy0962 How is it naughty i don’t get it uhh
@@fsard3147 in this sentence, "raw" refers to unprotected sex, so the comment is very naughty.
@@dryashes oh uhh O-O
8:16 "Die, glochids, die." Man, this is hilarious.
7:53
2:54
He sounds like the master
I ate this fruit once when i was like 6 years old, when i saw it i was like "Oooh mom can i try this?" and she bought me it, safe to say i was full of prickles however still to this day i miss the taste.
i dont get it cause i ate these plenty of times and never felt any pain. i have some of these plants in my backyard.
Luck
I love tunas
@@greensdreams4217 you just ate it unprepared with the skin on?
@@dkarmadkarma2822 no
@@dkarmadkarma2822 he said he didnt feel pain
To peel the tuna I recommend chopping the top and bottom so it's barrel shaped, then you do 1 long cut top to bottom and peel off the now rectangle shaped peel in 1 piece.
To cook them it takes a long time, they change from bright green to browny-green, military-camouflage kind of green when fully cooked, either just put a couple of them with salt and pepper on the grill, or also boiled, chopped, coupled with oregano and panela or mozzarella cheese, any soft texture soft flavour cheese will do great, but really cook them until they change color
"Mom, Dad's yelling *DIE!* to the food again!"
yep......
lol he has a wife and kids so it might actually happen lol
We eat this AAAAALOOOTTT in Egypt, it is a very special summer fruit we usually call it in arabic what translates to “spiky figs”
They’re sweet and super super delicious. The seedy core is super tasty and they grow to different colors fuchsia, yellow, orange and green
Dude, that is seriously cool!!
They're very common late summer snacks in southern Italy too. The cactus grows everywhere and we call it "fico d'india" or "fhicundianu", which translates to "indian fig". My dad and i harvest these in September using a spear and a knife and they're absolutely delicious. Sweeter than a watermelon, but not nauseatingly sweet like a regular fig.
@@waspjournals41 yaaayy it’s interesting how we both call it figs tpp, they’re super tasty I love them 😍
@@NurHamdyhello fellow Mediterranean friend! if you're very lucky you'll come across a white fruit once in a while. Those are the most delicious, too bad they're very rare
@@waspjournals41 woah! I'm from morocco so whenever I go over there I eat a lot of cactus fruits but I had no idea there were WHITE ONES
imagine if his neighbor didn't plant that cactus, this video would not have existed
No life is a series of random events
Food at the grocery store is trying to kill you, read the ingedients. Any time you can process a high electrolyte food that does not have pesiticides on it (at least that you know of) do it! Great video very informative. I wish I would have watched it before trying to skin my neighbors prickly pears today. I did the whole "just hold inbetween the spikes" method and it does not work as mentioned. I later took a propane torch to the rest of them and proceeded to use a cheese cloth to make an excellent tea. Not too sweet and very thirst quenching.
"I like it raw" - Adam Ragusea, 2021
2 kids. Confirmed.
@@MCXL1140 vasectomy, also confirmed
Yeah baby i like it raaaaaaww, shimmy shimmy ya shimmy yam shimmy yay.
@@ScrilboBaggins gimme the mic so I can take it away
@@MCXL1140 herpes confirmed
I'm from Tucson and we have tons of these things around here, so a lot of our snacks for tourists at airports is different ways of eating prickly pears. My personal favorite is a type of Turkish delight flavored with prickly pears.
Fellow tucsonian here, I love that airport
Sorry I kinda laugh, I’m from Mexico and we also eat the green part of the “nopal” as we call it.
Love your videos:)
Mas hacia el final del video explica eso
Nopal is good with sunflower soup.
@@toby1061 i didn't know they made soup out of that. How does that taste?
Jeremiah Bourne Imagine like vegetable broth mixed with sunflower seeds.
@@toby1061 thanks sounds pretty good.
I love Tuna & Nopales. The two ways my mom makes them is Pico de Gallo with cut pieces of Nopales. And my favorite is grilling it with a little salt. Perfect combo with grilling carne asada.
I live in middle east, this plant grow everywhere. my dad used to cut the sides scar it from the middle peel a little and let me pick the edible part. FYI u can use a good quality gardening glove, and burning it change its flavor.
Growing up in Jordan we ate these all the time, they sell them on carts onn the streets and fruit markets- peeled and ready to eat, since the seeds are very hard; unchewable; you either swallow or spit, swallowing too many will make you constipated. The flavour is delicious, like a very sweet passionfruit. I honestly can't remember when was the last time I had these, I miss them!
"Don't pick the prickly pear by the paw, when you pick a pear try to use the -claw- *tongs* "
I saw my grandma peel one of these things once by hand and have been pretty brave around them considering there's a lot more spines than I gave it credit for.
Her method: make a verticle slice from top to bottom. Not too deep just enough to reach the fruit flesh. You then use any part of the knife to lift up one side of the skin, stick your finger under and then run it up and down separating the skin from the fruit. If it's ripe enough the skin should just peel away in one piece with minimal fruit loss. 👌
Like nettles, any plant that puts so much effort into protecting itself must be delicious!
Mmm..like the Durian.
don't eat the fly traps they taste like bug flavored grass based soda pop
Actually plants are delicious so birds eat their seeds and spread them
@@EdibleFuture That's not their defense tho, that's their source of food.
@@jockin Never said it was a defense. Also all plants take flavor from their food source a common example of this is sweet onions taking the nutrients from their surroundings and changing the very way the plant tastes so yes any carnivorous plant should as well taste of bugs as for the soda part of the flavor i believe it is due to the digestive enzymes the plant produces to break down the proteins of the bugs they catch
"i do very much like it raw"
ok adam
Okay good. I wasn't the only one. 🤣
It's like he wants lewd ytp made from him
@@kster809 Lol yup!
Did Ol' Dirty Bastard change his rap name again? I thought Dirt McGurt was stupid, now he's apparently this Adam Ragusea guy.
Aw baby I like it RAAAAAAWWWW
@@EricLeafericson I'm glad somebody noticed!
As a Mexican I find it weird he won't eat the seeds, and that pad was way too mature, still awesome to see Adam try it 💖
I ATE THE SEEDS ARE YOU PROUD OF ME?
Ew wtf
From someone who has lived in Mexico for decades: Peeling a prickley pears is easier than peeling a pineapple. The skin comes off easily. Just peel it like you would an evil orange. Take a fork to impale that prickley pear and hold it in place. Cut the poles, then make an incision on the skin and use the knife to peal. Takes like 5 seconds. The seeds are perfectly digestible. That's all.
In algeria the fruit is literally called "hindi"
Wich means Indian
For unknown reasons
Edit : I got more info it's actually called "indian fig" but still for unknown reasons
apparently turkey bird is also called hindi in many cultures according to one of Adams videos, i find that interesting...
oh and a small correction hindi is actually the language most indians speak not indians themselves (that would be hindustani in "hindi")
My language is arabic so hindi means Indian and hindia means the language
And we call turkey bird here Indian rooster wich is weird xD
التين الهندي elteen elhendi
We call them shoe figs, so I guess we are wierder 😂.
Me: "Ah, a cactus."
Adam: "ANGRY PLANT."
Adam from a different dimension: “ANGRY BIRD.”
As a Mexican-American it is nice to see a comprehensive video on nopales
@Theo Pouroumalis sem lol
for real my guy, my fajita game finna be A1
@Theo Pouroumalis thats a fact jack
The glue method is good for stubborn splinters. For stuff like fiberglass and nettles I will press some duct tape over it and peel it off. Do it a few times peeling from different directions. Does a good job getting it out.
Adam Ragusea: How to eat cactus
Me: (laughs in Mexican)
Ajsjajjajaj, nmms este wey
Smn XD
Laughs in netherlands
Hahahahaha 🤣😆
A huevoooooooooooo
Someone should make a “how to eat everything” playlist which is just every “ how to eat” video on RUclips in one playlist
You got the idea why don't you?
@@jackcapell8471 It would probably take a channel run by several people to track down and add that many videos.
Anyone interested?
@@yunaneomi yes
OK whats next
Me, living in the frozen north, having never seen a live cactus: *interesting...*
i live in connecticut and the only cacti we have are the tiny ones you can buy in flower pots
@@enby-ralsei opuntia humifusa is actually a native in connecticut, rhode island, mass, and new hampshire (among other non new england states). It's also easy to grow other species like fragilis and polyacantha. I have a bunch in my garden here in mass.
Anthony Thatcher I live in Winnipeg, so if I saw a wild cactus, I would assume I was hallucinating
@@oakesaustin160 Have you ever seen them in nature? I'm from MA and have heard of them but it sounds like a myth to me...
@@arminpetschelt8127 Yes I have. In Brewster MA they live up on the dunes a few hundred feet from the water. I assume they live in other sparsely forested areas too.
How you amused me with this video! :)
From South Africa. Prickly pears (as these very sweet cactus fruit is called here), are something we have great respect for... and love very much! Good gloves are the best barrier to pick and process them. Tons of ways to consume them! Great jam! They are seasonally sold in shops- thorns and all in boxes of 6 or 12.
I love how that cactus is like so fascinating to Adam, like he's never seen one before. They're all over the place here in the Southwest.
>_> yeah I'll love it hwen he finds out New cholla blossoms are edible. I wanna watch that mistake happen.
Hes making an Educational video for ppl who dont know...
@@henryjohnson2164 some people are so ignorant ahhaaha dont understand how these people cant see that its for the video, he said in part of the video that the one he used was down the street... im sure he sees them alot
Everything around you that you think of as normal is really interesting if you focus on it enough, so much so that you just spent 10 minutes watching some guy talk about this for you ordinary plant
Cheers from middle Europe, where you won't see a single naturally growing cactus in your entire life.
"Let's evolve into plants so that being eaten is so treacherous many animals don't even think about it!"
25 million years later:
“I do very much so like it raw”
-Adam Ragusea
I ate a ton of "tuna" while living in Peru, and we always just ate the seeds! Yes, they are way too hard to chew, so you would kinda chew the pulp around them, but them swallow both pulp and seeds when done chewing.
Asi mero le hacemos en Mexico
I live in Az, so when we hike and find prickly pears, my family takes them and we use rocks to rub the spikes off and we eat them on the hike. It's lit
Does take off the small spikes too?
@@full-timepog6844 don't ask the mighty one,we are human
@@full-timepog6844 If it doesn't you just grin and bear it until your saliva takes care of it
I live in Arizona too. The cacti here are painfully beautiful. The Teddy Bear Chollas still terrify me.
"[Cactus] is food. You might find that surprising."
me, a Stardew player: "...no, that's great for dungeon crawling."
ez skull cavern dub
@@Tahmid_1337 hell yeah
Na I already new cactus was edible
I can relate
Cactus: *Grows spikes so it doesnt get eaten*
Humans: Are you challenging me?
Tortoises and some other animals also eat them whole with no problem. A for effort, I guess
Hoho Mukkata kuruno ka ?
Pepper: develops spicy capsacin so only certain critters eat it.
Humans: MORE SPICE PLEASE
Good old, omnivores paradox.
Forcing omnivores to make a choice of "is that edible" and "how desperate am i to eat that" but hey we got wine and cheese from that paradox forcing us to eat rotten fruit and milk
The two great mottos of all humanity:
Not if I digest it first.
and,
Not if I befriend it first.
Here in Mexico we ate those a lot. We hold them with a fork, then proceed to cut the edges aproximatedly 1 cm thick, then we made a longitudinal cut and with the same knife open the skin and then simply extract the fruit. If you keep them in the freezer they taste better . My favorites are the pale green variety