I've recently been working on a list of cacti with well-appreciated fruit (with details about them and their cultivation), and it's gotten monstrously large. Cacti are so underappreciated. And often beautiful - ever seen for example pilosocereus cacti? Great fruit too. A lot of species (including ones with good fruit) have amazing monstrose forms as well. And most cacti have beautiful flowers. Cacti grow on marginal lands where often little else will grow, and deserve to be cultivated more. Some are even highly productive - for example, in good conditions Opuntias (prickley pears) can yield 50t/ha, nearly as good as apples. Dragonfruit is also up to 50t/ha in good conditions. In the wild (aka poor conditions) some columnars yield up to 20t/ha when mature. They can take a long time to mature, though, and yields start out lower.
Very interesting! I'm really surprised that the only cactus fruits that are commonly available are prickly pears and white dragon fruits, there are so many tasty and interesting species out there.
Both this fruit and the dragon fruit (which comes from a very different cactus) are known in Spanish as “pitayas.” Prickly pear fruits (Opuntia sp.) are called “tunas”- not to be confused with the tuna fish, which is “atun” in Spanish. Prickly pear pads, when used as a vegetable, are called “nopalitos”- at least that’s the name in Mexico and Texas.
TheToloachito tal vez tengas razón. Parece qué hay muchas variedades que desconozco pero lo digo para que no piensen que el dragonfruit es de asia cuando en realidad es oriundo de México.
Really cool! Living literally minutes away from Mexico it's nice to learn of a new fruit I've never heard of. The texture looks like fruit that has been frozen and thawed out. Great video as usual!
This fruit is probably my favorite fruit in the world. I used to live in Mexico for part of the year and we would always go and pick these from the cactus. For those of you who want to pick them, bring long tongs to pick them.
We used to eat cactus pears and these in Morocco . a man would come around yelling the name of the fruit and if you wanted some you have to buy it but you would go outside with a bowl and he had a big massive glove on his left hand. He cut the peel off the fruit and put the fruits into your bowl it is considered good for digestion if you eat the seeds it's on my husband at the time decided I needed a bowl. But it's so neat out fit to sit home in the flower guy goes around and he has all kinds of flowers and cornmeal and then the housewares guy and he has everything from fake plants to kitchen scrubbers there is a mint guy and is this cactus fruit guy. He also had golden colored cactus fruit that were simply Cactus pads that were yellow and they were yummy too. :-)
A fun fact is that in spanish, it's even harder to distinguish this fruit from dragon fruit. That is because in Mexico, dragon fruit is called pitahaya while this is pitaya. The only differece between them is them is the additional ah, which is hardly pronounced. They both come from cactus.
That is cool thing about Mexico you will never go hungry. Awesome fruit growing everywhere year round. I remember visiting my cousins down on the ranch in San Luis Potosí Mexico and we would go get pitayas , garambullio , pitahayas, Gamuchiles.
Here, in northeast zone, we have a species called Cereus Jamacaru ( Scientific name), it's a popular cactus that we people called Jamacaru or Mandacaru. But only few people consume it. It's a refreshing fruit.
There are many species of columnar cacti; most produce pitayas with variable delicious flavors. The fruit must be harvested fully ripe and it’s delicate so it doesn’t ship well. I’m amazed that you found it in New York. You would love to visit southern Mexico in summer, when markets sell several species of local pitayas. The most tasty is pitaya agria. It’s available only in southern Baja California in August-September.
There are some that are too dry and seedy to eat. And a lot that aren't worth the effort. The majority of cactus species have bland fruits. But there's so many species that it leaves a huge number with great fruits - often far too underutilized. There's not just hundreds of species, there's nearly 2000!
Mexico is the land of cactus with so many variety from North and South and East to West. Where my parents are from I'm San Luis Potosí Pitayas grow wild in all colors , orange, white, red, purple,
Oh and where did you get these? Was this something you got around NYC? The green one reminds me of the Peruvian cactus pear, which I've always wanted to try!
I grow red, white and yellow pitaya here at my house. A few weeks ago I had my first Mexican Pitaya, I think it is the best of any of the dragon fruits, or cactus fruits I've had - hands down. I saved several seeds and will be planting them this weekend. So, I hope to have a good supply of them soon! PS - I'm the guy that offered you a banana flower and a Marcus Pumpkin Avocado. Thanks to you and your reviews, I have a number of trees I wouldn't otherwise have, and I have several dozen hard to find tropical fruit trees.
Well, in reading up on how to grow them, one article said it can take up to 100 years for them to mature?? Not sure if that's true, but we may be waiting for a while LOL... I'll still plant them and hope I can give them more favorable growing conditions than a desert. If that is true, that might explain why they are pretty rare.
as far as I know, the Stenocereus Thurberi AKA the Organ Pipe Cactus starts flowering when it reaches 30 years old, I don't know if it can be fastened with some grafting methods but, that's my goal :D
Interesting, in my country we don't have these type of Mexican pitaya available in the market , would like to try the strawberrydragon one day visiting Mexico
The reason why many dragon fruits come out mild is because they are harvested too early and not vine ripened. Florida grown white dragonfruit is much sweeter than imported stuff because of this.
Now it's the season of pitayas here in Jalisco, they have a variation of colours of the pulp, wite, yellow, orange, red... Pink... And it's a fruit that the people that suffer diabetes can consume... It's very difficult to export because perishes quickly. I'm dying for some pitayas right now but quarentine happened u.u
Many of pereskias produce edible fruits but most people don't know they are actually cactus fruits because unlike other cacti pereskias look like an ordinary plant. Only the cactus spines on the woody stems give them away, otherwise they look more like a rose bush than a cactus.
I remember as a kid on my yearly vacation to Mexico with my dad he tried getting me to try it and I was iffy at first but once I tried it I ate them daily. Now I try to tell my American friends about them and they always assume it’s dragon fruit but no man! They’re so much more flavorful than dragonfruit. So glad it wasn’t in my head and this was actually a fruit hahaha
@@WeirdExplorer It´s a Stenocereus thurberi, trust me on this. My state (Sonora, México) is mostly desert and that fruit is a huge hit in July. WE ONLY KNOW OF THE RED ONE IN MY REGION, but, I am aware that there is a white variety.
I got these from the same vendors that sold me the jocote, so its possible they snuck it over from mexico. Costs were high.. I think $14/lb or something like that.
Weird Explorer. That's fun, having connections with illegal smuggling. I see it as a movie..."The Pitaya"..."You got the goods man?" Yeah man, you got the money?" "Yeah man. Anyone see you?" "Nah man, I'm like a ninja, a pitaya ninja, show me the money." "Here's your 14 dollars." "Next time it will be 20 cuz hiding them in my pants crossing the boarder is getting harder and harder." "Why man, is it the heat." "Nah man, the guards at the gate laugh at me cuz they think I'm packing and I can't afford to get caught having them think my "package" is getting bigger."
Sounds good. I was not a fan of the white dragon fruit. Like was mentioned I Iike some type of acidic and sweet element to fruit it can be varying degrees but I like that balance and I think that is why I don't like melon or bananas at all. Well bananas because they have a weird undertone that is very hard to explain I find off putting.
You are eatting bananas underripe if they have a lingering after taste. The later you eat them, the less after taste and the sweeter they become. Just eat them before they totally go black :) Brown spots on yellow skin is ideal. Stores sell them underripe as they ripe fast on the counter at home. Don't store in the refrigerator.
Richard Smith no I have had bananas of varying degrees of ripeness from different places. The true banana essence that flavor that makes well taste like bananas and not just any other strachy fruit is what I don't like.
The more sweet the actually taste more gross to me because they have more of that very unique flavor that makes bananas, bananas, when I say allover I don't mean just Cavendish from the states I mean all over as in different countries when I have been to. I do like plantains ok kinda sorta providing they are greener than green and that way don't taste even remotely banana's cousin adjacent lol. Very green that the plantains have just like that starch almost tuber like taste. So to make that clear no I don't like bananas period.
I suppose that is possible. I can't stand melons, and people have become confused about that, thinking I was eating them wrong or something, when I simply just don't like the taste.
Richard Smith yeah turns out alot of tastes people don't like are hard wired into them a famous example being cilantro, and I too don't like melon with the exclusion of cucumber, zucchini, and some squashes which are technically in the same gourd family as what everyday people refer to as melons.
They are just pitayas not Mexican pitayas and what people call dragon fruit they are pitahayas not pitayas gringos made this mistake maming the fruit wrong
