Prickly Pear

This is the very typical scenery in Apulia. Olive trees, soil littered with white stones, white stone hut to hidde the paesant from the elements, white dry-stone wall and... an enormous prickly pear near it.



They grow  in grand quantity near the roads, too.





Is it because not so many plants like this difficult soil that has not only to dry easly but to become burning in summer, or the inhabitants like it so much -I don't know. I bought it to taste once but there were so many seeds in the pulp of the fruit that I could not eat it and I could not understand how it was. So, I never buy prickly pear more.




I would like to know how to cook it, so maybe I would be able to appreciate it...