Prickly pears

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Out walking today I came across a new prickly pear plant developing from what looked like dead scraps, illustrating a previous comment of mine.

[Mia]

I like them too but you have to be very careful and get rid of the fine prickly hairs.

           

They are being sold in almost every shop with fruit and veg as well as at some street markets.

   

We usually buy them in Corralejo street market, ready to eat.

[Mia]

We've seen some prickly pears  in Hiperdino in Las Rotondas over the weekend.

Very green looking

[waggy]

My Sicilian grandma used to buy them from Egyptian street vendors who went around door-to-door through the streets in Alexandria in the 1930s - 50s apparently. Figs, dates, artichokes, milk from goats that were milked on the door step, cheese, drinking water from wooden bowsers, fresh fish and even goats. They shouted their wares, you appeared on your balcony to indicate interest, went down to street level, chose what you wanted and haggled the price.

[Spitfire58]

Wow waggy, 
Really seems like we are in a completely different world & realistically it’s not that long ago 

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Hi Waggy
Nice to see you on here.
Your Grandma's experience sounds very like what I remember of my childhood in Malta in the early 60s, definitely the goats and milk although I seem to remember Shoats (cross between sheep and goat), the waterman came round, the ice man came calling with blocks of ice for your cool box (very few fridges out there then), prickly pears amongst other fruit, most carried on donkeys. And, once every few weeks the dung cart to empty the pit!

[waggy]

Well, Spitfire, it wasn't too different in the North Lincs villages in my late 40s - 50s childhood. Fish vans fresh from Grimsby - 1s 6d bought enough cod for 6 of us and the cat; coalman with his patient horse and cart with cwt sacks, milk on the doorstep, newspapers delivered (I pedalled 7 miles before school 6 days a week), Pig meat from my grand parents sty, honey from my grand-dad's hives; fruit from their orchard with apples stored under the beds on the bare boards and hams and flitches hung on hooks along the beams in the spare bedroom. Homemade apple and bramble pie and crumbles. Home made hooch - cider, potato spirits ?, cowslip wine, rosehip syrup, elderberry wine and syrup, mushrooms from the fields, wild damsons (bullace), pheasant, partridge and water-hens' eggs; freshwater fish - usually perch, pike, roach and yummy eels and flounder. Rabbit, hare, game, water fowl - We never ate so well as when there was food rationing.

[waggy]

Hi Waggy
Nice to see you on here.
Your Grandma's experience sounds very like what I remember of my childhood in Malta in the early 60s, definitely the goats and milk although I seem to remember Shoats (cross between sheep and goat), the waterman came round, the ice man came calling with blocks of ice for your cool box (very few fridges out there then), prickly pears amongst other fruit, most carried on donkeys. And, once every few weeks the dung cart to empty the pit!

Good to see you too, Tamara! I forgot the ice man. Artichokes were also on offer.

[Spitfire58]

I grew up in 60’s Scotland. I vaguely remember the coal man with his horse & cart & going with my gran to get veg from the shops, all loose & straight from the ground including potatoes but not a lot else tbh. But I was in a city centre(ish) so maybe not quite the same. It was a lot more like that when we went to visit family in rural Ireland then.

[Raye]

I watched a TV programme a while back where a Michelin starred Chef was using the pads in salads and no doubt charging a fortune in his restaurants. You don't need to peel them just make sure all the large spikes and smaller ones are removed by scrapping with a knife then chop into pieces. I have tried it and it is quite tasty and apparently nutritious.