Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary of Scientific and Common names for Prickly Pear
- Map
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Prickly Pear, Brewing and Local Knowledge in the Eastern Cape, 2000-2006
- Chapter 2 The Spread of Prickly Pear, 1750-1900
- Chapter 3 Early Debates about the Control of Prickly Pear
- Chapter 4 Experiments with Cactus in the Cape: A Miracle Fodder? 1900-1930.
- Chapter 5 Eradicating an Invader: Entomologists, Cactoblastis and Cochineal, 1930-1960
- Chapter 6 The Multi-Purpose Plant, 1950-2006
- Chapter 7 Scientists and the Re-Evaluation of Cactus for Fodder and Fruit, 1960-2006
- Chapter 8 Afrikaners and the Cultural Revival of Prickly Pear
- Chapter 9 Conclusion: Back to the Brewers
- Appendix
- Endnotes
- Index
Appendix
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary of Scientific and Common names for Prickly Pear
- Map
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Prickly Pear, Brewing and Local Knowledge in the Eastern Cape, 2000-2006
- Chapter 2 The Spread of Prickly Pear, 1750-1900
- Chapter 3 Early Debates about the Control of Prickly Pear
- Chapter 4 Experiments with Cactus in the Cape: A Miracle Fodder? 1900-1930.
- Chapter 5 Eradicating an Invader: Entomologists, Cactoblastis and Cochineal, 1930-1960
- Chapter 6 The Multi-Purpose Plant, 1950-2006
- Chapter 7 Scientists and the Re-Evaluation of Cactus for Fodder and Fruit, 1960-2006
- Chapter 8 Afrikaners and the Cultural Revival of Prickly Pear
- Chapter 9 Conclusion: Back to the Brewers
- Appendix
- Endnotes
- Index
Summary
RECIPES A DAPTED F ROM WINNIE LOUW, PRICK LYPEAR: DON't ABUSE IT, USE IT
Be careful when handling any part of the prickly pear. Pick fruit with gloves, put them on the grass or cloth, brush the glochids off the fruits, then soak them in water. If you are eating them fresh, top and tail then cut into quarters and peel back the skin, preferably with a knife. Do not put the fruit to your mouth until it is properly peeled. Use gloves and a knife to scrape and cut the young cladodes for nopalitos.
You can grow prickly pear as a pot plant in northern Europe and it can be taken out of doors for the summer months. It will supply a few small cladodes for salad, but these do not grow as quickly or as big as in semi-arid or Mediterranean climates. It is unlikely to fruit indoors.
WINNIE LOUW ON PRICKLY PEAR
‘The prickly pear has always fascinated me, even since I was a child. I grew up in the Graaff-Reinet area, where the prickly pear grew in abundance. As children, staying far away from town, there was no shop to buy sweets and we had to look [to it] amongst other things … to supply us with that something to chew during the long, cold winter months. We [made] all our pocket money by selling prickly pears, which we picked ourselves, and polished them with a soft cloth till they shone like apples. … We, as children, got our share of fruit to peel for ourselves for “dates”, our own sweets for the winter. When my mum [Margaret Turner] had enough syrup ready we could make our dates’.
For the book she ‘used recipes my mum used, and also received some from other people’. She thanked Zimmermann: ‘he did wonders for the prickly pear, trying to bring it home to people that it is food and not a weed’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Prickly PearThe Social History of a Plant in the Eastern Cape, pp. 231 - 233Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2011