Pickled, deep fried and tucked in tacos: why cactus is the new superfood you should be eating

It's a green party, says Frankie McCoy
Eat your succulents
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Frankie McCoy1 June 2016

Eating a cactus sounds like the kind of thing YouTubers would do just for laughs. Google “eat cactus” and the first video that appears is of a chap called “LA Beast” wincing as he bites spike-first into a green desk plant. But actually, they are an excellent way to get your green fix. Succulents aren’t just for windowsills.

Don’t worry, chefs aren’t asking us to nibble on needles. Instead, they’re cooking the Opuntia ficus-indica species, known as prickly pear, nopales (Mexican for paddles, referring to the plant’s shape) and its fruit, unfathomably known as tunas.

Latin American cuisine is cactus fruit-heavy, which is why, as a wave of good, authentic restaurants has hit London, the prickly fruit has started to appear on menus. “I used to love going to the market with my grandmother and watching the ladies selling the nopales, skilfully remove the prickles, piling up the cactus paddles on one side and the thorns on the other,” says Edson Diaz-Fuentes, chef-owner of the tiny, brilliant Mexican restaurant Santo Remedio in Shoreditch. “There was no question that cactus would be on the menu at Santo Remedio. It is a staple ingredient in Mexican cuisine, dating back to Aztec times, and just like avocados it is a fundamental part of the Mexican diet.”

Hence its inclusion on the Mexican menus of La Bodega Negra (in a black bean tostadita), Comensal (stewed and added to salad) and Latin-Caribbean Guanabana, where it’s pickled and deep-fried.

A Mexican native and former head of innovation at Wahaca — whose summer menu includes cactus-courgette burritos — Diaz-Fuentes says: “Growing up I ate a lot of cactus. My mother prepared it at least twice a week, usually in a salad with chopped tomato, onions, coriander and a crumbly fresh cheese.”

Cactus Alambres 
Wahaca

It’s eaten with scrambled eggs for breakfast, or in tacos, and coleslaw — which is how it appears on the Santo Remedio menu. For the tacos, the succulent is grilled, giving it a fleshy texture and tart, raspberryish flavour that works when balanced by sweetcorn, potatoes, salsa and Mexican chihuaha cheese. “Some of our customers have tried cactus for the first time here,” says Diaz-Fuentes, “and while it can be an acquired taste, the majority of people really like it. Especially once we tell them what a superfood it is.”

A major factor in the cactus’s spike in popularity is its health benefits. High in bone-building manganese and vitamin C, its fibrous nature has also linked it to weight loss — “Which is probably why my mother would make me eat it so much when I was a child,” says Diaz-Fuentes, “I was, let’s say, on the chubby side” — and general toxin-removal.

That’s why it crops up in smoothie bar Crussh’s “Detox” smoothie, blended with pineapple, bananas and lime — essential slurping for the frequently hungover — and True Nopal cactus water, one of the new wave H20s ousting coconut water. The faint fruity tang of the cactus purée is refreshing when applied to a parched, booze-blasted throat.

And cactus isn’t the only succulent we’re sucking up. Aloe is also on menus. Alex Lai, co-founder of Simplee Aloe, discovered the edible quality of aloe when travelling in Asia, where it crops up in curries, bhajis and pickles, and realised it made an obvious addition to the UK’s booming “health water” market.

More A-Z of healthy ingredients

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Cartons of Simplee Aloe fruit juice, containing 35 per cent aloe vera, have a pleasant boiled-sweet taste — but as ever, you’re really drinking it for the health benefits. In aloe’s case, that means a host of vitamins, from A to E, plus calcium magnesium, zinc and potassium — all great for digestion, skin and the immune system. “Aloe vera is a really versatile ingredient,” says Lai. “You can even include it in puddings and brownie recipes.” It’s time to go green.

Follow Frankie McCoy on Twitter: @franklymccoy

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