3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
2 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp lemon juice
Directions
From: Arizona Cookbook
Select prickly pear cactus (or small barrel cactus if you own this
type of cactus, since it's illegal to remove it from the desert).
Remove spines and outside layer with large knife. Cut pulp across in
slices one-inch thick. Soak overnight in cold water. Remove from
water, cut in one0inch cubes and cook in boiling water til tender.
Drain. Cook slowly in the following syrup until nearly all the syrup
is absorbed. Do not scorch!
SYRUP for 2 QUARTS of CACTUS CUBES
Heat all ingredients until sugar is dissolved. Then add cactus.
Remover cactus from syrup, drain and roll in granulated or powdered
sugar. For colored cactus candy, any vegetable food coloring may be
added to the syrup.
Servings: 6 servings
Cactus Candy Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Candy
The History of Recipes
It is quite feasible to prove the history of written cooking instructions way back into ancient history, certainly as far back into recorded history as pharonic Egypt, and possibly even further. Interesting though that maybe, mostly, these old cook books were just simple pictorial instructions for preparing meals.
Interestingly, the oldest recipe discovered so far, according to food historians are some tablets in Sumerian which describe the baking of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made people feel `blissful`. Continuing our culinary historical journey, we have a couple of recipe books which were published in the 14th Century - a book called `Forme of Cury`, and another named `Curye on Inglish`. Don`t be fooled by the titles though, these have no connection with the indian food that is familiar to us all today, but rather recipes for the types of food on the menus of the rich people of the period. Over the succeeding few hundred years, the wealthy families of Europe competed to serve the most extravagent meals, and as a consequence, the best cooks and their recipes increased in prestige. Notwithstanding that, it wasn`t until the 1800s that fine cookery and recipe books became really popular. The Famous Mrs Isabella Beeton in the UK, and the equally famous Fannie Merritt Farmer in the US, devoted much of their lives to collecting, verifying, and recording popular recipes of the day. When we get to the twentieth century, recipe books were highly popular as a result of more people being able to read, people having more leisure time and a general increase in wealth. The TV revolution brought us TV cooks and the demand for the accompanying recipe books. And that neatly brings us to the present day and the invention of computers and the internet, allowing us all to access massive numbers of recipes such as those found on the site you are now reading. |
We hope you enjoy this Cactus Candy recipe.
