All throughout southern Italy, and here in Sicily, we have seen these cactii with pinkish-yellow fruit on them. To begin with we weren't sure what they were, but they were everywhere - in ditches, in gardens, near houses.
We found out that they are Fico d'India - or Prickly Pears. They are eaten in the summer, and what we were seeing were the remains of old fruit. No idea how they taste - and I admit, I'm not so interested in finding out!
My Sicilian grandparents used to grow these in their back yard in Santa Cruz. They are delicious! I never knew the spelling of the word, and so I used to mimic the word phonetically, something like "figgudini," but when I got a Sicilian dictionary recently, I discovered the true name. Thanks for posting this. Ah, memories!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Paul! They are quite fascinating to me, and I loved the different colors we saw them in - shades of purple and pink, yellow and orange. :)
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