Nopales y Tunas
You can’t get any more Arizonan than eating an actual cactus! Eating nopales and tunas is something that stems from Mexican culture here in my state. My abuelita Joaquina prepares different parts of the cacti in our own yard as snacks for us. We grill the actual cactus limbs and we also slice and serve the cactus fruit cold. As a kid, my absolute favorite food was grilled cactus, or nopales asados. What you have to do is cut the limbs of the cactus, or nopal, and clean it by scraping the skin and needles from the surface with a knife. Then you grill it with oil and salt. The fruit is often called prickly pear, but in Spanish we call them tunas which is from a Taino word. They usually appear green, purple, and red. You can make all kinds of things like syrup, candy, and smoothies with the fruit! The kind that grows near me is green and I eat it raw and refrigerated. You simply cut the fruit when ripe and skin it. It’s full of seeds but has a taste like dragonfruit or melon.
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