Ficus Indica

Barbed bulbs of taste, they are?  Spiny, spiky, threatening outside; succulent honey-like flesh inside? One of the most underestimated late summer Mediterranean fruits must surely be the cactus fruit. The ripened fruits are sold in street carts in southern towns like Adana, Antalya, Mersin, Tarsus and others. Nestled in big blocks of ice, they are stripped of their spiny peel with a masterly blow of a sharp knife by the vendor and at an instant, handed to you like a popsicle from heaven. The gelatinous sweet flesh full of seeds is delightfully refreshing. 

Known by several names, it is mostly recognized by the name "prickly pear." Its Latin name, Opuntia ficus indica, refers to an Indian origin that is totally wrong. The plant has nothing to do with Old World, just as the whole cactus family comes from the New World as a Columbian exchange gift to the Mediterranean. It is thought to be native to Mexico, where it is as important as maize or agave economically. In Mexico, the plant is not only grown for its fruit, but also as an animal fodder and as a vegetable. The young tender cactus pads called nopales are amazingly tasty and refreshingly reminiscent of fresh green beans, which are wonderful when fried with eggs. However, throughout the Mediterranean, the Mexican origin is seldom recognized; the fruit is usually tagged as Indian, in many cases not really as an indication of origin, but simply meaning exotic, or a novelty (actually there is trick in that Indian tagging). In Sicily for example, in the local dialect, it is ficudinnia, from the Italian "fico d'India," the fig from India. In Turkey the popular names used for the spiky plant usually try to nail down its origins, like the "M?s?r inciri," "Frenk inciri" and, most commonly, "Hint inciri;" meaning...