Freshly canned prickly pear and black currant jellies.
Prickly pears right after picking, being given a thorough inspection by QC.
Fortunately they passed...
~In nature. Yeah those red things are edible! So are the paddles, but I prefer buying those from my local Latin market as they're bigger, and I don't have to mess with those nasty spines.~
Auntie Eva's tips for working with fresh prickly pear fruit:
A bucket, tongs, and leather (or heavy rubber gloves), and heavy bottomed shoes are necessary for picking.
The gloves to absorb
most of the teenie weenie spines on them. I recommend a cheapie pair from the dollar store as mine were so filled with the little buggers I just tossed em. Plus they were pretty ratty to begin with. I still spent time picking near invisible spines out of the sides of my fingers, so be warned some will get through.
Tongs not for picking so much, but to pick up picked fruits out from a wad of thorns that they will inevitably fall into. The easiest way to pick them is to grasp the fruit, give it a twist and gently pull. The darker red-purple the easier it will be to pluck the fruit off.
Remember the rule of mamma nature: Never pick from anything that has less than 4 fruit, and don't pick all of them. I leave at least one per plant.
The bucket to put your prickly prizes into. The bucket is plastic and hence you won't have to worry about a bag slapping against your leg and all the prickers getting lodged on you or any other surface you put them on.
Heavy bottomed shoes, because well, you'll be messing around in patches of cactus. Those stickers are heavy, sharp, and want to be in your foot. Keep a vigilant eye on where you step at all times. Despite being super careful where I stepped I still had a long needle like tooth that got lodged into the side of my sneaker's rubber by a good half inch. Respect the cactus. It's not a people plant, which is why its got all those spines. Keep your contact to a minimum.
For removing the teenie prickers off the fruits themselves I read several methods on the internet. I tried them all.
Here's what I got:
Burning them off. Are you kidding? Do you know how many spines are on each fruit, and how many fruits I had?
Swishing in water, uh, they get rained on all the time. Why would your tap water be different for removing them? (I tried anyway just in case. No)
I ended up using an old piece of canvas (washcloth size is fine) that I later threw out, and while wearing thick dishwashing gloves rubbing all the small 'poufs' off the surface of the fruits, then dumping them in another bucket of water to rinse off any leftover stuff before handling them.
I did all this in my tub because it gave me the proper room for two buckets and me messing between them, and afterwards I just ran the shower for a moment to rinse any prickers out.
Worked well as I had no cross contamination of those teenie little prickers anywhere in my house.
One last tip:
Have duct tape handy. Because even with eagle eye vision you will still have a few spines stuck in you that will pinch when you brush against something. But you can't for the life of you locate to pull out.
Applying a strip of duct tape to the area and quickly pulling it off will usually remove said pest from your tender dermis.
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