A thorn by any other name

Walking through the village of Franceses today, it was great to see all the tunos, or prickly pear as some people call them, out in flower. Red, pink, orange, peach and yellows - a whole array of sunny colours.

So how can something so pretty and innocent looking be mounted on an armed weapon such as the cactus?  Innocent looking enough but touch one at your peril - they are covered in spines, the majority of which are so fine as to be practically invisible. Added to which they act like folding anchors so that they pierce and enter the skin with remarkable ease but refuse to come out again until days later by which time they have done their utmost to irritate and annoy. Oh, and hurt a bit too.

However the fruit of the cactus, the tuno, is a delicious fruit and Palmerans from the country are adept at picking them with a couple of random twigs, using them like chopsticks. Or alternatively, there are purpose-made sticks rather like long tongs which are sold in the hardware shops for the very purpose.  At least then you can reach into the clusters of cactus, standing at what is hopefully a safe distance.
But of course as always, what is one man's poison is another man's meat which means that whilst we might not exactly enjoy direct contact with cacti, for something else it's their idea of heaven, and those little follows are the cochineal.
Most people will associate cochineal as a red food colouring but in fact it is an insect which lives on cactus.

A bit of a surprise then to see that the cochineal on the cactus look white as if it has been covered in talcum powder.  That's just their way of protecting themselves from drying out or excessive sun and is in fact a waxy substance.  It doesn't however protect them from their predators - man.

Whilst the cochineal dye, carmine, is used for the colouring of garments and food, it really does take an awful lot of them to produce any substantial amount - about 150,000 insects are needed to make one kilo. Understandable then that synthetic dyes became popular, that is until people became concerned about artificial food colourings and now there is a resurgence into the production of natural dyes.  In  2005 the Canary Islands produced 20 tonnes of cochineal dye - so it's not just bananas that come from la Palma!

Line up

Here are a few prickly little fellows lining up around the edge of the cactus, apparently for a better view.

Usually, the cacti do not produce as many fruits, or tunos, as this per hand, so this little lot really are quite a handful. In another month or so they will start to ripen, turning through shades of orange, pink and red. Then you can eat them.

Make sure you don't touch them though, even with a glove. When they are ripe enough the tuno will break off easily - either use a device such as super-long chopsticks that you can buy or make, or if you can get close enough use a pair of tongs and twist them off. If you do it right, the 'neck' should not be torn or broken.

It's vitally important to get all the anchor shaped needles off them. Once the needles go into your skin (and I swear they do even if you just look at them!), they are hard to get out. The needles are deceptively fine but will cause you grief for days.

One of our neighbours puts hers in an old bath filled with pine needles collected from the forests. Then she spends around five minutes literally brushing them and rolling then around so that the cacti needles break off.

Another neighbour lays his on the ground and then brushes over them continually with the broken off branch of a broom bush.

Now they are ready to eat. Simply slice each end off, or even just partly off, then make a cut from top to bottom. Now you have got access to the inside of the fruit, open out the skin and munch away. They are even better when they are straight from the fridge and are incredibly refreshing on hot, sticky days.

Hopefully, I will remember to take another photo of them as time goes on. I am just wondering though, if the tunos near the bottom are conferring to see if they should march up to the top, push the others over and claim the view for their own.