Fountain Valley News - Your Hometown Community Newspaper

I was shopping in an ethnic grocery store when I saw a huge pile of fresh Prickly Pear cactus pads in the produce section. Prickly Pear cactus is thought to be native to Mexico and is eaten as a vegetable. The cactus is called "nopal" in Spanish, and the pads or stems are called "nopales." Mexico exports 40,000 pounds of nopales pads to Texas every day. They're also grown as an export crop in Central America and Israel.

The pear-shaped fruit on the ends of the nopal pads are called "tunas," and range in color from a greenish-white to purple. If the tuna fruit are sweet, they're eaten raw or...