Prickly Pear Cactus at Sunset

Opuntia engelmannii var. lindheimeri, also known as Texas Prickly Pear Cactus.

Prickly pear dot the ranch's landscape. Currently, the seasonal purple fruits, known as 'pears' or 'tunas', are popping out on the mature plants.

Historically, Native Americans relied on prickly pear for food, medicine, and as a source of needles, containers, and water. During the mid-summer tuna harvest season (which lasts several weeks), it was THE most important food in the region, and ranks with pecans and buffalo as a critical seasonal resource. It was also used for many different medicinal purposes including treating burns, wounds, and diabetes.

One of the most famous accounts of prickly pear use was written by Cabeza de Vaca, the first European to travel across Texas. He wrote that in mid-summer many different groups of Native Americans would converge in southern Texas where prickly pear was ripening. They would squeeze the juice out of the fruit and dry the pulp and skin (Covey 1983). He also describes how they "gathered many tuna leaves and roasted them in an oven" (Krieger 2002).

I thought about picking some pears and trying them myself until I read this:

Some early explorers learned the hard way that wild-type prickly pear tunas have to be processed carefully. The following account describes a historic prickly pear accident that occurred on Matagorda Island, as related by Henri Joutel, a survivor of La Salle's expedition to Texas in the late 17th century--

"One must strip the fruit before eating it because, although the quills are quite small and almost imperceptible, without fail they make one sick once they lodge in the throat and on the roof of the mouth. One of our soldiers even died from having eaten the fig greedily without wiping it. All these quills caused tremendous inflammation of the throat and eventually suffocated him". (Foster 1998)

Yikes! I think if I try one I'll get a spineless variety from the grocery store!