Prickly delicacy

If cactus doesn't jump to mind when thinking about your next meal, you probably haven't spent much time dining in the desert Southwest — home of the prickly pear cactus.

The use of nopales in the Mexican culinary tradition predates the arrival of the Spaniards, said Juanita Garza, lecturer and academic adviser for the history department at the University of Texas Pan-American in Edinburg, Texas. Indigenous people in pre-Columbian times didn't use nopales in festivals or religious ceremonies. Instead, the cactus pads were a mainstay of the daily diet just as they are for many people today.

Nopales are the shoots or pads found on the prickly pear cactus, which are peeled in order to remove the spines. Nopales can be found in grocery stores, especially in areas with a large Hispanic population. You can find them raw in the produce section, either in bulk or in plastic bags. In more recent years, bottled or canned versions are available. Less often, dried versions are available. Used to prepare nopalitos, nopales have a light, slightly tart flavor like green beans.

"Nopales is a native food that the Spanish picked up when they came," Garza said. "Then it has remained in the diet ever since."

Garza said the most important change in the use of nopalitos since the arrival of the Spanish about 500 years ago is the addition of meats. The indigenous people prepared them only with onions, tomatoes and other vegetables and spices.

Emilia's Restaurant in Brownsville, Texas, serves nopalitos several ways.

One of the more popular dishes, Silvia Contreras says, is Fajitas Guadalajara, prepared with spicy peppers, onions, melted cheese, avocado, plus the ubiquitous nopales, or nopalitos, a type of cactus.

Tony Zavaleta, professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, said the earliest manuscripts written by Spaniards in Mexico in the 1500s describe the use of nopales.

"This particular form of cactus was cited as one of the staple foods," Zavaleta said. "So it has been around as long as Europeans have been observing Mexican and Native American practices. It is what is called a cultural super food of Meso-America."

He compared its importance to that of the corn tortilla.

"I think it's ditto," he said. "It's the same thing. Beans would be the next one. Those are the cultural super foods of the indigenous Mexican population."

However, not all Hispanics like nopales.

"Many people would look down their nose at it," he said. "Most of the Mexican-Americans that I know, unless they grew up eating nopales, with their mothers preparing nopales, they don't eat it. So when they see it in the buffet line, they just go right past it. It's seen as something that is just too simple. But for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people throughout Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, it's used as an essential staple food."

Although indigenous people combined nopales with other vegetables and also with spices, people such as the cooks at Emilia's now prepare them with meats. They also can be prepared with salmon or tuna. At other times of the year, they can be prepared with pork, hamburger or turkey meat. "And then, of course, you add all the spicy kind of ingredients, like tomato, onions, chiles," she said.

For breakfast, Contreras said, nopales can be prepared with scrambled eggs and a side of beans.

Emilia's menu also includes the more traditional nopales a la Mexicana: fried nopales with onion, tomato and chili peppers, with rice and beans on the side.

Nopalitos are also believed to have medical uses, Garza said.

"They are used for diabetics," Garza said. "It really helps to bring down the sugar levels."

First and foremost in Contreras' mind, however, is their culinary value. Her mother in Matamoros, Mexico, keeps a large nopal cactus from which she regularly cuts pads for use in cooking.

"There's a lot of plates," she said. "My mother, for example, prepares nopales with ground beef and mixed vegetables. She cooks, boils them and serves them with rice and beans. She cuts them in the little pieces and puts them on the grill and puts salt and black pepper. Other people sometimes prepare nopales with little pieces of chicken and green beans, and on the side, some pasta, like Alfredo or fideo. I think there's an infinity of plates where people use nopales."

As you may have guessed, many uses for nopales are informal and handed down from generation to generation.

Dalia Carr, who manages El Fenix Cafe in Mercedes, Texas, has her own favored recipe — and variations — for preparing nopales.

Carr dices about two pounds of nopales and boils them with two or three cloves of garlic and a little salt. Then, in a separate skillet, she cooks more garlic, plus onions, bell pepper, comino (cumin) and black pepper in two tablespoons of oil. After she adds a small amount of red chili powder, she adds the nopalitos and cooks the entire mixture together.

"We can add two eggs to it, that's optional, mix it up there just to give it a little bit of spice and that's it. And then you salt it." She said, at a customer's request, she can add a little flour to thicken the mixture.

"You can add some pork to it. Just cook your pork, whatever kind of pork you want, just add that to that mixture, makes it great." She said she can also add chorizo (sausage) instead of pork.

In another variation, she leaves out the red chili powder but still adds the tomato, onion and some hot pepper, plus a tablespoon of chicken stock or consommé. Red chili powder is actually red bell pepper that has been dried. It adds color and a little spicy flavor, but it is not hot. Hot pepper is much hotter.

"You can add the consommé, without any egg, you can just cook it like that, like a stir-fry," she said.

"And it's just delicious like that. Oh, my God, it's just delicious."

For those who want a more "official" recipe, try Fajitas Guadalajara as served at Emilia's Restaurant in Brownsville, Texas.

FAJITAS GUADALAJARA

Yield: Four servings

1 pound of cut fajita meat (see cook's notes)

Comino (cumin), black pepper, garlic and salt, to taste

1 cup diced onion

1 cup diced tomato

Jalapeño slices, to taste

Dash of soy sauce

2 packages of cut nopales (see cook's notes)

2 avocados

1-1⁄2 cups Monterey jack cheese

Cook's notes: Fajita meat can be any kind of boneless beef, pork, poultry or fish. Nopales can be found in grocery stores, especially in areas with a large Hispanic population. You can find them raw in the produce section, either in bulk or in plastic bags. Canned versions are also available.

Procedure

Sauté fajita meat with the comino (cumin), black pepper, garlic and salt. When nearly cooked through, add the onion, tomato, slices of jalapeño and a little soy sauce. Continue sautéing until mixture comes to a boil. Add nopales. Put mixture in microwave-save casserole dish. Spread cheese over the top and microwave for about two minutes to melt the cheese. Top with sliced avocado. Serve with beans and rice, if desired.