Do not touch them......eat them;)!
"A firmai a tiempu a tiempu!" - I just stopped her on time!" told me Turuzzu.
During a visit to a producer in the countryside, one of our guests, attracted by the colours of prickly pears, was trying to collect one beer-handed. If he had not stopped her, she would have pricked her hands with dozens of small thorns.
Then Turuzzu, took the tool to collect prickly pears, which is a metal conic tool attached to the top of a long stick (see photo), got some, cleaned them and offered the fruit to our guests saying: "Nun si toccunu, si mangiunu" - You do not touch them, you eat them.
This episode, which is just one of a long series, got me the idea to prepare a guide to explain how to clean prickly pears.
I love the variety of colours going from white, to yellow-orange, red or purple. As a child, my favourite were always the purple ones, even though colour does not influence taste at all.
Now, how do you use prickly pears as an ingredient? Well, some people make jam out of it, others a special liqueur, current Sicilian top chefs have revived a recipe to make a sweet soup out of them. These are generally too sweet for me, especially the liqueur, so I must say that like my old friend Turuzzu, I simply eat them.