Olivers wrote:
>
> Arri London extrapolated from data available...
>
> >
> >
> > JE Anderson wrote:
> >>
> >> "Arri London" > wrote in message
> >> ...
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > TY for the invite, but my travel budget was spent on/in London.
> >> > Nothing more in the books until next year. June is also my busy
> >> > season for my gardening business.
> >> >
> >> > But yes when I lived in San Diego I used to pick tuna fruit along
> >> > the rim of the canyon (overlooking Mission Valley). Probably all
> >> > built up now no doubt, right to the very edge.
> >>
> >> This is a totally foreign cuisine for me as a "raised on white-bread"
> >> Canadian so I have to ask - where does the nickname tuna-fruit come
> >> from?
> >>
> >> Janet
> >
> > Tuna is just the Spanish name for the cactus fruit from the prickly
> > pear plant. Couldn't tell you the etymology of it.
>
> In the Mexican culinary cuboard, the cactus pad, nopal (or noplitos,
> little strips thereof) are certainly as popular as the tuna (once you get
> past the spines). Vaguely "green-beanish" in flavor, available cnnned (in
> jars) but much better fresh, they make a fine vegetable and useful salad
> stretcher.
>
> TMO

That's true, but cactus fruit juice and sweets have passed into
mainstream Southwestern cooking, while nopales/nopalitos don't seem to
have made that same transition.
The canned and jarred versions are in every supermarket around here
though.