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Prickly Pear Cactus
Latin, Opuntia vulgaria; Pennsylfaanisch, Deifelszung— “DYE-fels-tsoong”
Appears in
Published 1993
The dialect name literally means “devil’s tongue.” This native plant was once widespread in the dry barrens above Sumneytown in Montgomery County. A common vegetable in Philadelphia markets in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the dried fruit was used like figs in local cookery. The fruit ripens in November and tastes like pomegranate.
The pads (green part) were singed of spines and used like okra as thickeners in pepperpots and stews. Although two large patches of the cactus were known to survive near Sumneytown into the 1920s, overharvesting has now made this plant nearly extinct in its natural habitat in southeastern Pennsylvania.
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