FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
CACTUS
Garrett, Theodore Francis (edited by). 1898. the Encyclopedia of Practical Cookery. L. Upcott Gill, 170, Strand, W.C. London. Vol. I
is that the Pemo Indians of the Gila River made called Tiswein from the fruit of the Giant Cacus (Cereus giganteus) by pressing the syrupy juice from the pulp, mixing it with water in earthen vessels, and exposing it to the sun to ferment. It is very intoxicating, and smells like sour beer. Wines of less importance are made also from other Cactus plants, such as the Cereus Thurberri and Anhalonium fissuratum.
Excerpts from Hawkes, Alex D. 1968. A World of Vegetable Cookery. Simon and Schuster, New York.
Though the seedy fruits of a number of different kinds of Cacti are edible, the vegetable utility of these succulent plants is largely restricted to the nopales of Mexico and Guatemala (mostly nopalea dejecta) This group is best known for the shrubby species (Nopalea cochenillifera) on which the cochineal insect thrives.
The young growths (not leaves, as they are commonly called, but the specialized fleshy stem sections) of the Nopal Cactus are to be found in virtually every market in Mexico.
These pdlike growths are peeled-cautiously, insce they are set with vicious tiiny spines- then cut into lengthwise stripes or large dice. Nopales or the smaller juvenile nopalitos are avaialble.
Ward, Artemas. 1923. The Encyclopedia of Food. New York, Number Fifty, Union Square.
is usually prickly, generally leafless plants, with fleshy swtems or bodies- a number of them busy, some resembling telegraph poles in general appearance and conformation, others of round or oval shape suggesting spiny melons. A majority of the most important edible-fruit varieties are included in the Opuntia genus, the fruits being best known in this country under the title of Prickly pear.
