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Thread: How an Arizonan Company Turns Cacti Into Candy $#@!ly pear gummies

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    Post How an Arizonan Company Turns Cacti Into Candy $#@!ly pear gummies

    How an Arizonan Company Turns Cacti Into Candy - $#@!ly pear gummies are a taste of the Sonoran Desert.


    In mid-August, 17-year-old Lynette Alvarez and her aunt, Nellie Botello, put on matching camouflage snake guards and steel-toed boots for their work gathering $#@!ly pear cactus fruit. Snake-season is year round in the Arizona desert, and there are baby rattlesnakes in the summer that may not make warning rattles yet.
    Along with a handful of pickers, they start as early as 4 a.m. to avoid the scorching afternoon heat. By 9 a.m., when they stop, the group will have collected up to two tons of produce for the Tucson-based company Cheri’s Desert Harvest. The fruit will be pressed and its juice used to create a chewy jelly candy with a texture similar to a gumdrop.




    Botello and Alvarez pick the fruits, also known as “tunas,” from wild Opuntia engelmannii cacti, better known as $#@!ly pear, using simple metal kitchen tongs. As Alvarez lightly mashes the fruits to pack her six-gallon bucket, splatters of fuchsia juice accumulate like a Jackson Pollock painting on her long white sleeves and shirt tails. While the pigment will wash out, the juice’s bright-pink color is a hallmark of the beautiful syrups, jams, and candies enjoyed throughout the Southwest.

    B24EC71C-32E5-467E-8679-8EB7000A92BE.jpeg

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    5A70F94B-28C9-4803-82A0-BFE9E823C6D7.jpeg

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    https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...r-cactus-candy
    Any time you give a man something he doesn't earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect. -- Woody Hayes​

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    Quote Originally Posted by DGUtley View Post
    How an Arizonan Company Turns Cacti Into Candy - $#@!ly pear gummies are a taste of the Sonoran Desert.


    In mid-August, 17-year-old Lynette Alvarez and her aunt, Nellie Botello, put on matching camouflage snake guards and steel-toed boots for their work gathering $#@!ly pear cactus fruit. Snake-season is year round in the Arizona desert, and there are baby rattlesnakes in the summer that may not make warning rattles yet.
    Along with a handful of pickers, they start as early as 4 a.m. to avoid the scorching afternoon heat. By 9 a.m., when they stop, the group will have collected up to two tons of produce for the Tucson-based company Cheri’s Desert Harvest. The fruit will be pressed and its juice used to create a chewy jelly candy with a texture similar to a gumdrop.




    Botello and Alvarez pick the fruits, also known as “tunas,” from wild Opuntia engelmannii cacti, better known as $#@!ly pear, using simple metal kitchen tongs. As Alvarez lightly mashes the fruits to pack her six-gallon bucket, splatters of fuchsia juice accumulate like a Jackson Pollock painting on her long white sleeves and shirt tails. While the pigment will wash out, the juice’s bright-pink color is a hallmark of the beautiful syrups, jams, and candies enjoyed throughout the Southwest.

    Attachment 35205

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    https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...r-cactus-candy
    I bet those are good. My dad used to harvest a few here and there when I was a kid. The young leaves from the same cactus are also very good, and cooked into what are called "nopales". My dad would even harvest some leaves at Balboa Park in San Diego sometimes, lol. We were originally from Tucson, so he would always grab a few $#@!ly pears during our summer visits there.
    Cutesy Time is OVER

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    Can you eat the raw fruit?
    Today we live. Tomorrow we die
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    Quote Originally Posted by HawkTheSlayer View Post
    Can you eat the raw fruit?
    Yes you can.
    Cutesy Time is OVER

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    Cutesy Time is OVER

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    I'd like to make a 6 gallon carboy of wine with them!
    Today we live. Tomorrow we die
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    I haven't tried them, but I'll bet they are good. The link to the story didn't work for me, so I don't know if this was mentioned...now that recreational marijuana is legal in Arizona I wonder if they'll be getting into that market with their gummies.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Standing Wolf View Post
    I haven't tried them, but I'll bet they are good. The link to the story didn't work for me, so I don't know if this was mentioned...now that recreational marijuana is legal in Arizona I wonder if they'll be getting into that market with their gummies.
    I just tried it, it worked for me. I'm sorry. The link at the bottom?


    https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...r-cactus-candy
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    Quote Originally Posted by DGUtley View Post
    I just tried it, it worked for me. I'm sorry. The link at the bottom?


    https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...r-cactus-candy
    Yeah, when I click on it I get a screen that says,

    You've gone off the map
    Take me home.

    Then I click on "Take me home" and I get the Atlas Obsucra website, but not that story.
    Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard

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    Quote Originally Posted by Standing Wolf View Post
    Yeah, when I click on it I get a screen that says, You've gone off the map Take me home. Then I click on "Take me home" and I get the Atlas Obsucra website, but not that story.
    I'm sorry. I don't have an answer. Try googling it if you are interested.
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