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Comment by ProfessorLayton | Hacker News Reader

Cactus-based dishes and prickly pears are common foods in Mexican cuisine, and hardly uncommon in the US, due to a large population of Mexican descent.

Cactus is cheap, delicious, and can be found in your local Hispanic foods mart. Prickly pears are high in fiber, and only about 40kcal/100grams — Sprinkle a little bit of Tajín on them and you've got a guilt-free snack.

I suppose it will become more common in the future, but the main reason for that will probably be due to the growing Hispanic population in the US.

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Sounds ripe for an MBA to take it and brand it as a hipster snack discovered from Mexico.

Starbucks had a prickly pear Frappuccino this past summer:

https://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/frappuccino-blended-be...

Confession: I actually tried it out of curiosity, and it was pretty decent.

I love an example in this direction of `That Indian Drink`. When I first saw a label of it I read it in my mind as spoken by a Southern California Valley Girl accent. http://www.thatindiandrink.com/behind-that-drink/ Pretty funny play on likely found ignorance by others mixed with self-deprecating humor.

Cactus fruit is becoming a common seasonal thing in most Texas grocery stores. It is cheap and soooo delicious whether green or red. You can find prickly pear tuna as well, but this is still considered ethnic food.

What is the difference between “cactus fruit” and “prickly pear tuna”?

The genus of cactus whose fruit people eat most commonly is called nopal or “prickly pear” (and according to a web search is the state plant of Texas), and “tuna” is the name of its fruit in Mexico.

I always thought it was just another name for napolitos. In that case I will say the prickly pear leaves are commonly available in many grocery stores as an ethnic food item. The fruit, on the other hand, is quickly becoming a premier produce item in many major stores here, but the fruit are only available for about 3-4 weeks each year.

Nopal is the name of the “pads” (stems) of the cactus. Tuna is the name of the fruit. Nopalito just means “little nopal”.

My thoughts exactly. The 'nopal'[0], which has kind of a weird texture to me but does not taste all that bad. Also, I just learned that it's called "Prickly pears" in English, so thank you for that. I always just called them 'nopal' even when speaking English :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nopal

I've almost always referred to prickly pears by their colloquial Spanish name, tuna, but that gets pretty confusing to non-Spanish speakers.

Nopal is the word for green vegetal pads, somewhat like green beans with okra mucus. Tuna is the word for the bright purple or yellow fruit, which has a flavor similar to watermelon.

Oops, yeah I was referring to prickly pears. The bright purple and yellow ones are fantastic. I generally stick with the green ones, since the other two are dangerous as far as stains are concerned, particularly if you're sharing them with young ones!

My in-laws mix both "nopal" and "tuna". Possibly depending on context, but I'm still studying Spanish and nowhere near 'native speaker' level.

I just call them "nopal" as I hear that word more often. Possibly due to the saying "Nopal en la frente" when they tease my sister-in-law her husband.

I can imagine "tuna" being confusing to English-speaking natives :-)

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