My first experience with Nopal in Mexico was not seeing it, but eating it. One day we went out for tacos, and since I am vegetarian, the best option was a taco with nopal and queso (cheese). Since then I have seen nopal in many forms and places. There is another part of the plant you can eat, too. Can you guess? The fruit! It’s called “tuna,” and it tastes sweet, but only slightly.
Nopal is a green cactus. The main part of the plant is called a cactus pad. The pads are green, shaped like ovals, and have spines on them. They wouldn’t be fun to touch! The other part of the plant, the fruit, grows on top of the pads. It can be red or green and is about the size of a tennis ball. When the plant gets older, the individual cactus pads grow and change into part of the trunk or branches. The older parts of the plant become a grayish color. When the plant is old and has had a lot of time to grow, it can be very big and wide... sometimes even taller than me!
