I reclaimed the camera from Little Sis, so, more photo goodness on the way, yay!
Today I had almost arrived home when I passed a guy standing outside a truck in the street, peeling bajtar tax-xewk (prickly pears). I kept walking, but then thought "why not?" and went back and asked for a kilo.
I think I had tried them once, but I didn't remember the taste. I had learned about the soak-them-in-water-so-the-spines-fall-out trick from an itinerant greengrocer in BuÄĦibba, though!
Watching this guy peel the pears today was fascinating - he topped and tailed them, scored a line joining the two cut ends, and just peeled away the skin as though he was opening a handbag. Then his little daughter scooped up the fruit and put it in a plastic bag :-)
I bought a kilo, but now I know that about 600 grams of it must have been seeds, lol, and most of the rest is juice.
I mean really, it's ALL seeds, with just enough flesh to hold them together - prickly pears seem hardly worth eating, really, except for the novelty value. I've had two, and now I have another ten to go... *groan*... oh well, at least it's healthy!
(they look rather like alien pods from a sci-fi movie, don't they?)
*drools* you're just trying to make me jealous!
(PS never consume vast quantities of bajtar at one go... it tends to do funny things to one's digestion)
Posted by: Athena | August 26, 2005 at 02:07
Erm, thanks for the warning... *hopes that four doesn't count as "vast"*...
Posted by: MaltaGirl | August 26, 2005 at 02:12
Nah, but er you see one day my friend and I were at the beach and utterly bored. You know the drill: get dragged to Bugibba to someone's awful summer flat, get stuck with sea you can't swim in etc. And we kind of ate an entire bucket (a large one mind you) between the two of us. Let's just say we were in pain come sundown.
Posted by: Athena | August 26, 2005 at 11:09
Lol! Well I've decided to space out the rest of them... just in case...
Posted by: MaltaGirl | August 26, 2005 at 15:01