Ah yes LAS TUNAS , nope not the fish , the fruit of the prickly pear cactus. Not only do the birds and the bees eat and deliver. Human beings also eat these tunas.

Thanks for the botanical info Don. I wasn’t sure if this was a prickly pear because of the relative scrawniness of the fruit compared to others I’ve seen.

Beautiful photos, Will.

THANK YOU!

What a cool coincidence. I just got back from dinner at La Guelaguetza on Olympic, where I had their cactus dish – nopales. Here we have — nopales! Yea, tunas are the blossoms, but the “pads” are nopales or nopalitos – Don am I right on this…? I eat them often but I’m not 100% sure that the cactus pictured here is the same ’cause I can’t see the entire pad.

The pads are what we cook as nopales. The fruits are called tunas. They can be big or small. so these are prickly pear and the buds there are the tunas. the tunas blossom with flowers. They are the fruit. You eat the flat piece as nopales.