Who eats them and how do you cook them?

pretty sure you can grill them and you just fire the outside pretty well to get the spines out.

You should look for tender/new growth paties, they will be much tenderer and wont have much in the way of thorns on them yet, and then fire will get rid of what is there.

I have eaten it a time or two, but its not one of my favorites.

I have spineless prickly pear growing in my yard. We cut it up in slices and cook it with the onions and bell peppers for fajitas. You can chop it up and put it on salad too. Tastes a little like green beans.

Type in nopalitos or nopales in the search bar. You will find plenty of recipes. We grill them burn the needles off and then cut in thin strips and I put fajita seasoning on them and grill lightly on foil. Too much and they slime up. The prickly pear is the fruit. My mom used to make jelly out of em. I buy mine at the mexican food stores so I don't have to pick the red hairs out of my hands.

When I was a kid I ate too many of the pears and never got so sick in my life. They ran through me like fat through a duck.

My mom use to cook em up with eggs and she would throw in some chili colorado. Pretty tasty from what I remember.