In my previous post, I wrote about the Sardinian cheese with live maggots. This time, I'm going to talk about something a little less shocking: fruit!
When Felix and I traveled around Italy in the summer of 2025, I noticed these cactus with red fruits growing along the roads. I was curious about them and wondered if the fruits were edible. I even saw them in a supermarket, selling for around €6 per pack. I wanted to try them, but we were only there to buy some drinks before continuing our trip, so I didn't bother buying a pack.
Then we arrived in Sardinia, and I saw these cactus everywhere along the roads. There were so many! Since I was still curious about the fruit, I asked Felix to pick some for me when we came across them during our motorbike rides. He eventually did, although he had to wear gloves because the fruits have lots of tiny spines. They are difficult to see, but you definitely don't want them stuck in your fingers.
The fruit is called prickly pear. It grows on a cactus originally from the Americas, but it is now common in Sardinia and other parts of the Mediterranean. The plant does well in hot, dry weather, which explains why we saw so many growing along the roadsides. People eat the fruit fresh, and it can also be made into jam, juice, and sweets.
I finally got to taste it, but honestly, I'm not sure how to describe the flavor. It didn't taste like dragon fruit to me. The sweetness and texture reminded me more of very ripe papaya, although the flavor was different.
We also saw plenty of other fruits growing wild during the summer, including blackberries and figs. I was quite excited about the idea of picking fruit along the road, but the figs in our area we stay were small, and some had little worms inside when I opened them. Needless to say, I wasn't tempted to try another one.
Felix was also strict about the blackberries. He wouldn't let me eat the ones growing close to the ground because he was worried that animals might have peed on them, heheh... So, if I wanted to eat any, I had to pick the ones growing higher up.
It's a rather short post this time, but there's more to come! In my next post, I'll share a recipe for prickly pear jam.
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