MARGARITA'S TUNITAS

In Margarita's garden there was a tall Nopal Cactus like the one talked about in last week's Newsletter, and it was just covered with flowers and flower buds. When Margarita saw this she was delighted and said we had to get to work gathering our next meal. I was confused, for I didn't see a mature fruit on the whole cactus.

Margarita fetched a long bamboo pole and began knocking off flower buds -- actually the ovaries of the flowers before flowering had occurred. She said that after flowering the fruits would be too fibrous to eat. She also explained that this was one of the many varieties of Nopal Cactus, one producing edible flower ovaries instead of edible fruits. You can see a pretty picture of what we collected that day below:

In that picture you can see that each ovary bristles with tufts of glochids -- the minute, very sharp spines I told you about last week. Even wearing plastic bags over our hands while retrieving the ovaries -- referred to as tunitas -- we got glochids in our fingers.

When we got back to town we dropped by the house of Margarita's aunt and asked if we could prepare an impromptu meal of tunitas in her kitchen. We were completely unexpected but this is Mexico and it's something special to have a bag full of tunitas, so the aunt was delighted with the idea, and immediately preparations began.

The tunitas were placed on the ground and switched just as described in my last newsletter, to remove the glochids. Then they were washed and once absolutely glochidless they were cut up and sautéed in a skillet while onions, tomatoes, garlic and cilantro were chopped. The diced tunitas cooked up just like okra -- slimy. The finished dish also tasted as good as any okra dish, with a slightly sour taste. You can see a plate of it, along with the obligatory beans, tortilla, white cheese, and even some rice, all generously spritzed with hotsauce, below: