CACTUS PEAR | Prickly Pear Taste Test -- FRUITY FRUITS 

in Spanish they're called Tuna and Tuna in Spanish is Atun...don't ask. Also, the Spanish markets sell them on the cheap. I usually just swallow the seeds and the green ones are just as good and sweet.

my mom and I love prickly pear fruit, it's very popular with Mexicans... except we call them tunas. There's a church near our house that has a shaved ice vendor who makes prickly pear shaved ice and it's super delicious!

omg i love her, she seems so sweet and appreciates everything in each food she tries. she is never over dramatic and gives a very in depth description of everything. you deserve so many more subscribers than you have. i found your channel a couple weeks ago and love your videos so much

These are best when chilled imo. Or when a American tourist bites into one without removing the skin.

I love how open you are to different foods and you don't over react to the taste or look of foods! Another great video Emmy!

So many prickly pear lovers out there. Thanks for sharing your suggestions! 🌵 🍐 💕

I grew up eating these in Mexico :) we call them “tunas” they’re lovely , even when they’re green. Very hydrating and fresh. And you can eat the seeds too!

I'm 59 years old and I've lived in Texas my entire life. When I was a young boy we lived in South West Texas. Very arid lots of prickly pear cactus and mesquite trees. As a young Texas boy , I my brothers and friends all ran around and played amongst the prickly pears and mesquite trees. Dodging scorpions, tarantulas and venomous reptiles. But regarding the prickly pear cactus fruit, or tuna. We just called them Texas raspberries. But I grew up eating these. Anytime we got tired of playing or just wanted a snack we'd race each other over to the nearest growth of prickly pear and grab a fallen mesquite limb with a small fork in it. Then we'd pull out our trusty pocket knives, ( every boy in Texas then past the age of three carried a pocket knife.) , trimmed down the branch and removed any of those horrible mesquite thorns, ( they'd make you sick), and then use the forked stick to go underneath a red ripe looking tuna and expertly pop it off while keeping it in the fork of the stick. Then, again with our pocket knives we'd lop off each end and slice it shallow from one end to another. Then Peel it using the back of our knives to separate the skin from the red meat of the fruit. Then find a shady spot to sit and we'd all enjoy one, two or three of the fruit. Our mother always knew when we'd found some Texas raspberries because our lips and all the skin around them were stained red as were out fingers. We ate the new pads of the prickly pears before they were able to form any thorns. They were tender, kinda juicy but a little gooey like okra. But I always loved raw okra and fried and cooked okra. You could actually prepare young cactus pads exactly like you would okra.

When my family lived in California we had a cactus (similar to a nopales) that would grow these on it. We'd throw then on a *really* hot grill to cook off the spines, then we'd peel them, run them through a food mill, ad some lemon juice, water and some sugar and BLA-BAM! Prickly Pear lemonade !

I love prickly pears! Both the red and green ones. The price may be due to season or location. Here in TX it is not uncommon to get between 4-6 for $1. I grew up eating them with sea salt, lemon and chili powder, it's the best. I love your channel but especially this series, it's how I found you.

Ahh, I love these! I think I just got used to swallowing the seeds tbh, they're pretty small.

I'm Hispanic and we call them tuna. I love eating it with lemon and salt and some tajin

Eat the seeds! You eat them

I'm Italian and these are really popular amongst the Italian community! I've been eating these my whole life and I have never spit out the seeds and I'm fine! So don't be afraid to just eat the whole thing. Also, they do have spines in them still so avoid touching them a lot haha! Great vid Emmy!

In my culture we actually call these “Tunas” and they are actually my favorite fruit. They are sweet but not too sweet, yet still has a fruity flavor with the most perfect texture . It’s almost as if your biting into a Really soft mango that’s just a bit grainier. I HIGHLY Recommend these if you’ve never tried these.

fun fact about these that ive noticed during my vacation in jordan when I was about 10 years old. I was picking these with my uncle on the sides of a canyon. the cactus figs, once you pull them out of the cactus with like an rod, the cactus shoots out some needles. that will get under your clothes. at first you wont notice, but when you get home you feel those needles EVERYWHERE. but you can shower them away.

I love prickly pear jelly and candy. Here in Arizona it can be found in a lot of places and tourists eat the stuff up lol (literally).

Awww we are Italian and we always use to have these in the house as a kid. Reminds me of my grandpa who loved them and had them all the time ! RIP nonno ❤️ they are delicious

greetings from israel and we have a lot of cactus trees here, and u can find it in orange color, yellow and red too, we eat it with the seeds u just swallow the seeds with the pulp u dont need to spit them. love u emmy

My first reaction on this video in the begining was: " watch out! The skin has a lot of tiny thornes" . At the end my fear was confirmed lol. Red Tuna is sweeter than white tuna but, in my opinion, its texture makes it less attractive. Great video and greetings from Texas!

In Mexico it's referred to as a tuna

my folks call them Tunas. I guess it's the Spanish / Mexican word for them. they kinda have a berry /Rose smell to me!

I was raised on a ranch in South Texas where we have, literally, tons of these. We juice them make a lovely jelly from the juice. I aways enjoy your videos. Thank you for your work!

I always bought these at my local outdoor swap meet, where they would sell them in a big cup already peeled and prepared with salt, lime, and chili powder 😋.

My 93 year old grandmother live in arizona, and when prickly pears are in season she walks around her neighborhood picking them! She makes jelly with them :)

AAAAHHH. These are quite popular in Texas! My mother used to make fruit salad with these in them. A beer company called Shiner has a Prickly Pear beer and it's great! It's only out in summer though, but it's pretty refreshing. Also, prickly pear margaritas are abundant and delicious.

I love the way you describe the taste, its so detailed and descriptive its like I can accurately imagine how it tastes..and know whether it want it or not

One of my favourite fruits. It's watermelon meets strawberries in flavours to me. Sweet, refreshing... and the Maltese make a beautiful liquor from it

In Mexico it is called tuna, the green one is way better. That's the right way to eat it btw, big aplausse.

In my experience prickly pear fruit and saguaro fruit are best when made into a drink, like a smoothie, or in jams. But, they are quite unique and tasty. If you haven't you should also try nopales and nopalitos. Nopales are the prickly pear pads, and nopalitos are the same but cut into strips and pickled. They're delicious too, though they're not sweet like fruits.

Those are my favourite fuits ever! In Italy we have plenty of those in the summer, we call them "fico d'india": "fico" means "fig" and "d'india" means "from India". Also, you can eat the small pits, they are not dangerous whatsoever. And rembember to always wear gloves when you manage them because they have almost invisible spines! Love you emmy, have a great day 💖!

To eat prickly pear you simply bite down lightly. Enough to grind up the flesh a bit without hurting your teeth on the hard seeds. Then swallow the flesh and seeds whole. There's no reasonable way to avoid the seeds, just swallow them like we did back before seedless watermelons were the norm.

my favourite fruit!!! kinda tastes like bubblegum a bit.

I live in Texas and I see these wild everywhere. Of course those usually aren't as good as intentionally grown ones. If you buy them from a farmers market or something similar (not corporate or store bought) please make sure to remove any thorns! Learned that the hard way. They can have those weird hair thin thorns that are light colored and hard to find!

My grandma and I always made ice cream from fresh prickly pear. She lived in New Mexico, so prickly pear was involved in a lot of desserts :)

Hi! I live in Sicily, Italy. In my region this fruit is everywhere, it's one of the most typical fruits of this territory. We call it "Fico d'India". We usually eat it with all the seeds because they're really too much, some people also make the jam with cactus pears and it taste really good! P.S you and your videos are absolutely lovely! Much love from Italy.

Your videos are so satisfying and your voice is so soothing. Keep up the great work!!❤️

In Chile we called it Tuna, and can also be green

I would just like to say thank you for doing this. Not only are fruits from all over the world so different & alien looking but I would not have the guts to try them. It also takes effort in learning about each one & letting them ripen until the right moment. I appreciate tasting these unusual fruits vicariously through you & thank you for sharing it with us!

I'm from an island in the Mediterranean and that kind of cactus grows everywhere and gives fruit in the summer which are best eaten after you refrigerate them.There are a few varieties, not all of them are this colour. We also have the one that remains green even when ripe, another one that turns yellow and one of orange colour. They taste more or less the same. They are full of seeds but we dont remove them, just eat them with the seeds :)

In Italy they are called "fichi d'india" and you can find them only at the end of summer or at the very beginning of autumn. I love them! Btw I really Love your videos! Un bacio 😘

I've never tried them but my grandpa and mom love them. He often stops on the side of the road in Mexico to pick them. We call them tunas!

I’m from Sicily and we have a lots of these Cactus plants all over. They grow up almost everywhere. I think the fruit is delicious, I eat it every time I can. I live in Switzerland and they sell from 1.25 to 1,99 Swiss franc per kilogram. It’s actually super convenient.

We used to pick pickly pears on our way to school. The thorns are in small clusters all over the skin of the fruit and can sometimes be hard to avoid when you peel it. My trick was to always avoid touching the outer skin when peeling the pear. But once you get past that the fruit is quite juicy and sweet. I love it!

I love your videos. very descriptive. those are also hangover preventatives eaten after a hard night of drinking (that's something I read, I don't know from experience). I've been having a lot of success with them managing migraines.

I spent a lot of my childhood summers in Cyprus, prickly pears there were quite popular but I remember them to be orange and a little flatter than the one Emmy ate. I saw them in the supermarket and and my curiosity got the better of me, I picked them up with my bare hands and I experienced what Emmy found at the end of the video! They are covered with really fine hairs that are sharp enough to pierce your skin and get lodged. They feel a little like a splinter, but also felt like getting a little shock whenever I touched something enough to jiggle the splinter.

When I used to live in Spain my neighbour, who was a sweet old Spanish lady, would peel the prickly pears and slice them all up and there would be so many colours and they would all taste great. She would do this every week in the summer and in return we would give her and her husband churros and chocolate on a Sunday morning. To this day I still remember the taste of those refreshing little fruits and I haven't seen them anywhere in the uk.

My aunt makes jelly out of them, and the juice is used for anti-inflammatory reasons, used to make cocktails ( prickly pear margaritas!), made into sorbet even. I love it's very unique flavor!

AAAAAHHH!!!!!!!! That fruit sounds refreshing! ((and yes, I read the description box))

Love how you thought twice about stains on your cutting board. 🍽😉

My Nonno when he immigrated in Australia, began growing these in his garden and would give them away in prickly pear season to all his friends, family and neighbours all around the community. So I grew up eating these my whole childhood swallowing the seeds too. We had the pink (my favourite) and yellow ones. Sadly these many trees and tradition out lived my grandfather and still grow in his big garden.

its great for jelly, here in texas theres no need to buy them though, around august youll find bright red fruits all over the flap jack cactus that grows wild on the sides of roads and basically everywhere

You're supposed to eat the pits it helps with digestion :D

Something I actually tried before Emmy! I love prickly pears. They taste amazing almost like those fruit punch juice boxes but more natural. They used to be cheap in my mom's hometown because no one knew how to eat them and were turned off by the spines.

We love these out west. Growing up, my mom made a jam with these and currants. We also did slushees with lime, chili powder and lemon zest which made the prickly pear stand out. It’s so cool to see other people love these as much as we did.

I used to be homeless in the desert, and lots of people grew these with smaller pears. I used to harvest them from apartment complex landscaping, and the like, and those fruits saved my life a time or three!!

We have them in egypt. I love them we call them" teen shwky" it means thorny figs

Im so happy you gave this fruit a try! I'm from Bolivia and growing up I always ate this fruit. Actually my two favorite fruits are watermelon and prickly pear. A suggestion never touch a cactus pear by hand. The big thorns might have been removed, but the flesh has tiny ones and will sting you. Always use a fork and knife when pealing it. =]

I used to eat these all the time when I was a kid. The cactus grows as a nuisance plant where I grew up, and most kids would collect the fruits and snack on them. We'd wear rubber gloves and skin them with a pen-knife. The way you peeled yours, you actually lost quite a bit of fruit. You can actually peel them like a potato and preserve a lot more of the pulp that way. The consensus amongst my peer group was that it tasted kind of like "red" Kool Aide!

This fruit is really common in Italy. We call it "Fico d'India" (translated: "Indian fig"). I love it, especially when super sweet! It costs around 1 dollar / kilogram where I live.

hi emmy! i live in corfu greece and prickly pear cactus grows in the wild,here normally they eat the fruit whole without spitting the seeds,they say they help with the digestion!lol our prickly pears may be smaller,but the taste is sweeter than sweeter:)

Supposed to be studying for finals, but Emmy is a higher priority than that.:)

So , growing up almost every Christmas holidays we'd travel to Burgesfort north of South Africa rural areas to enjoy with our cousin's and great grandmother. She would pick these from the tree early hours of the morning , sweep the thorns away and keep them under the tree shade,that way they'd preserve the chiller temperature from the morning. By the time everyone wakes up I'd be on my Third pear ... LoL ... The hard part was going to the bathroom for number two...😀😀😀😀😀😀

Hi Emmily, in Mexico we use to eat this fruit a lot, it is a very traditional and cheap fruit, in fact our national symbol it is “an eagle devouring a snake” over a “nopal” plant with many “tunas” fruit. We use to eat with lemon, salt and spicy.

Those grow rampant in New Mexico where I live... prickly pear jam is almost a delicacy here!

Wow, I can't believe how bright it is inside. Such a beautiful fruit, I would love to try this, the only problem is, I wouldn't know where to buy one from. If anybody has any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Oooh! So happy to see you trying this! There's three main varieties: green, red and orange ones. Reds are mealier but more flavorful than greens (with greens being crisp but not very floral), and orange ones being the best (crisp and floral) May I suggest eating them chilled. So you got some prickles in: next time try holding it steady with a fork while you cut the ends, and the grabbing the cut ends while making the vertical cut.

Hi! I've been watching your vids for over half a year now and love them. As a Mexican American, I wanted to give you my expertise on this fruit. We call them tuna, which is very awkward to say when you're vegetarian and trying to explain this as your favorite fruit, so thank you for teaching me the American word for it. The seeds are 100% edible and actually good for you. They help with constipation, which I suffer from a lot. It's best to swallow them than to spit them out. Lastly, I recommend getting the green version! It's firmer in texture and way less messy. I prefer them over the red ones any day. Hope that helps and let me know if you have any questions.

In Germany they're called cactus figs and oh I love them! They're sweet and soo juicy! Sadly I don't eat them a lot because they're not always available here since its not a native fruit to Germany. But when I can get my hands on them I buy plenty! Yum!

Can you try durian because I always watch you eat food and depending on your awesome description I I decide to buy it I've tried a bunch of the ones that you tried I am a fruit lover

I live in Austin, Texas and we have tons of prickly pears available at our disposal since there are cacti by the millions all around. We used to pull them off the cactus and break the spines off and eat them like an apple. Now that I’m an adult, I enjoy prickly pear margaritas at one of the many Mexican restaurants near where I live. They’re delicious!

My Italian ex-inlaws loved these. It was a childhood favorite from "the old country." They grew the huge cactus in their California back yard and I regret never eating one!.

Yep! Lol. And this is why I stop buying the fruit. I kept getting splinters no matter how careful I was. Wish I could of worn ya through this video Emmy! 😂

Lol...your fruity song

Living in NM, of course, there are tons of cacti around. In middle school, my daughter loved to have them for breakfast, and would just pluck them from cacti near her bus stop. She said they were especially good when it got colder, and it'd be like eating a slushy.

Known as "tuna" here in Chile, they grow all over and many people have a cactus plant at home. I don't see the red ones often, but the green ones with whitish or light green flesh are sold for around 1 dollar/kilo in the summer. I recently learned you should harvest then early in the day or at twilight. Supposedly it helps with not getting stabbed to death by the spines, but that might be an old wives' tale. The one time I harvested them, I got pricked even through leather gloves. If the fruit still has the spines, you can scrape it with a knife, and then cut off both ends and use a towel to peel it like you showed on camera. Otherwise, you'll end up with hairlike spines in your skin that hurt like crazy. And, to eat them, I've never seen them eaten like you did; instead, just cut the fruit into round discs or bite-sized pieces and serve. Most people just swallow the seeds. Like guava seeds, they're good for digestion. 😁

I dont know if is the same, but looks similar.... in Mexico we have a fruit that looks like.... We call TUNAS...!!! there are of Green, orange, red and white color.... so so sweet......

I'm from Algeria and here we call is 'Karmos' or sometimes 'Karmos el Sara'

My father developed a taste for prickly pear while my family was living near Los Angeles in the 1960s. When they moved "home" to Massachusetts, he brought these home whenever they had them at Star Market, where we shopped exclusively. All through the 1970s he would invite me to sit with him while he almost ritualistically carved it up and ate it, offering me bites as he did so. He really longed for California his whole life, long after we returned to New England after about 6 or 7 years living in greater LA. This fruit was his way of still feeling connected, in a way.

We had a prickly pear cactus growing in my yard when I was a kid. Dad sliced up the fruit, and we ate it on our Grape-Nuts cereal like Euell Gibbons did in the old Grape-Nuts commercial on TV. Tasty!

Hi Emmy, have you tried dragon fruit? If not try to compare it to the that Prickly Pear. Please let us know if they taste the same. Thanks!

In Italy they're called "fichi d'india" that means "indian figs" and I don't know why I guess tha's because the plant looks kind of exotic! They are pretty common in here

Yes... It is gorgeous!

In the Med we eat them seeds and all. They're lovely for breakfast, cold from the fridge xx Tip : They're normally harvested early morning when the thorny bits are not as sharp and soaked in a bucket of water. You them hold them with a tea towel or garden gloves to peel :)

Oh my goodness! A real prickly pear! I take nopal cactus supplements for hangovers. 2 before I drink and 2 when I get up. Lol

You can also eat the green ones! I personally like them better.

Usually, 'older-type' foods tend to be on the "watery" side, so I'm tickled to know this had a stronger flavor. Makes me want to try it! Thanks for leading the way!

EMMY! I've been waiting for you to try prickly pears! I infuse water with this and sometimes use that water to make tea! It adds a slight flavor that's really tasty I highly recommend trying it if you have more!

never seen that thing in my loife

At a house I lived at when I was 16 we had a cactus that eventually had prickly pear and I picked it myself. It was a bit of a disaster since I wasn't prepared for the prickles but it tasted so good none the less. When you said concentrated watermelon I just thought yes yes that's exactly what it is. To me it tasted like watermelon bubblegum. So delicious and I would eat again.

In south africa it's common and popular to those who have access to it. Not a commercial product yet. The prickly pear syrup is heavenly poured over white sorbet ice cream. I ate it once long ago.....still stuck in my head.....THAT TASTE!

It looks like a dragon fruit on the inside except a dragon fruit has a lot more seeds

they grow everywhere here in texas lol never have to buy them

Wow, we grew Nopal, cactus and always got beautiful fruit for free. If you live in a warm climate you should try growing cactus. The flat paddles, leaves, are edible too, loaded with minerals and vitamins. The cactus has a very slight lemony flavor. The tunas are absolutely fabulous picked fresh. Very juicy, and yes we ate the seeds. The one in your video was older that's why it was rather dry.

You are so delightful to watch your demeanor kinda cheers me up

If anyone wants to pick their own, cactus spines soften on the fruit when they're ripe.

In Italy we call it "fico d'India " "indian fig" . Usually, it grows in the south where u can find Mediterranean weather.

In Mexico, as many people have said, we call them "tuna" ("tunas" in plural). In central Mexico (I'm not sure if it's the same in all the country), when the "tuna" is small and acid (a variety) we call them "Xoconostle" (pronounced Shoconostle), and it's used to cook hot sauces. Tunas and xoconostles are eaten with the seeds, we don't take them out. Even if it doesn't look like that, these fruits always have little thorns which hurt, so if you are going to eat them I suggest to use gloves or tongs/clamps. As many said, when in season, this fruit is very cheap in Mexico, about $50 cts per 2lb. 😊 thanks Emmy, nice description of this fruit

omg I picked so many of these a couple months ago and they were delicious ..... my kids love em 🤗

great review Emmy! in Perú we call it Tuna! :) i recommend prickly pear ice cream! it's delicious