Location Taken: Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, Illinois
Time Taken: April 2008
Cactus cactus, happy cactus~!
I like cacti!
They’re tasty!
No, really, they actually are edible and some species, such as prickly pear, are commonly used as food. My favorite cacti-type food is aloe, which is a succulent rather than a full cactus. They’re related plants, though, so close enough. I occasionally pick up an aloe drink (sweetened water with bits of aloe floating around) when my stomach feels a little off. The healing power of aloe, long used as a burn treatment, works rather well internally too. At first, I could only find them in Japanese and other Asian imported food markets, but it’s becoming more popular in the US, with brands like ALO now available in a lot of places. They’re pretty much only the natural food sections of stores (or in international sections, if they’re the Japanese drinks), but I can buy them at my local grocery stores.
Cacti has also been traditionally eaten by Mexicans, judging by the jars of pickled cactus I can also find at the grocery store. I’m not sure exactly how that tastes, since those jars are too large for me to want to buy just as an experiment. I don’t want to have to throw out four cups of cactus because I didn’t like the taste of the teaspoon worth I tried.
Most cacti species, though, aren’t used for food. Either they don’t taste good, they’re too woody, or they have too many spines to be worth bothering with. I suspect this particular cacti species falls into that last category, with that marvelous mane of spikes. Not that I tried to eat it. I doubt the botanical garden would have liked me taking bites out of their exhibits.
