La tête Coneoise
We are from France.
Sep 14 2009
Mutant prickly pear paddle de la semaine: Conehead
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Savage Death Island Motto
Take it or fucking leave it and get the hell away from me.
26 comments
ambivalent academic
September 14, 2009 at 1:33 pm (UTC -6)
Lovin’ the mutant paddles. Really. Keep ‘em coming.
In your infinite spinster auntly wisdom, can you recommend any good recipes for the fruits of prickly pears? I recently ran across some at the supermarket and couldn’t resist buying a few – they were so plump and magenta. I’m beginning to wonder if the P has finally found a chink in my long-standing anti-pink armor. Perhaps I’ve been brainwahsed after all. Now I have no idea what I’m going to do with the tunas.
Jill
September 14, 2009 at 1:43 pm (UTC -6)
“can you recommend any good recipes for the fruits of prickly pears?”
This is all I got.
Pinko Punko
September 14, 2009 at 1:53 pm (UTC -6)
Looks like one of those guys from The Point. I think that dates either me or my parents.
PhysioProf
September 14, 2009 at 2:38 pm (UTC -6)
You can eat that shit!? Who knew?
Squiggy
September 14, 2009 at 4:29 pm (UTC -6)
Evidently Native Americans have eaten prickly pear cactus since Adam and Steve according to this site:
http://www.desertusa.com/magoct97/oct_pear.html
This site has some interesting recipes but the spelling is lacking:
http://www.totacc.com/user/jgoucher/pprecipe.htm
But this site. Wowee.
http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/nopalitos_list.htm
ambivalent academic
September 14, 2009 at 4:36 pm (UTC -6)
Sweet! Today totally calls for some tuna margaritas! No why didn’t I think of that?
schatze
September 14, 2009 at 4:36 pm (UTC -6)
That can consume mass quantities?
Comrade PhysioProf
September 14, 2009 at 5:54 pm (UTC -6)
That shit’s nopalitas!? I’ve eaten fucktons of nopalitos tacos, but I always thought it was some kind of weird cow internal organ.
tinfoil hattie
September 14, 2009 at 10:17 pm (UTC -6)
Looks like one of those guys from The Point.
Me and my Arrow
Straighter than narrow
Wherever we go
Everyone knows
It’s me and my Arrow
Cactus Sally
September 14, 2009 at 10:30 pm (UTC -6)
mamie cactus – vous semblez affamé
Jodie
September 14, 2009 at 11:20 pm (UTC -6)
I was singing that just the other day!
Vinaigrettegirl
September 15, 2009 at 2:48 am (UTC -6)
Caution re near-invisible spines is quadrupled when considering getting them down your esophagus, though, and alas ’tis true for the fruits as well as the paddles. Very heavy rubber-palmed gloves, pliers to pull out the main clumps, a good scrubbing brush, and running water are advised by many. However, the result can be delish.
Antoinette Niebieszczanski
September 15, 2009 at 7:13 am (UTC -6)
Having read some of the recipes, it’s understandable that such deliciousness would get nibbled. Or chomped, as in the previous example.
Now I’m going to be singing “Deep in the Heart of Texas” the rest of the day.
juliebee
September 15, 2009 at 9:12 am (UTC -6)
On the topic of mutants, behold. Gross! Awesome! A hoax? A gross awesome hoax? Real or no, I suspect that not only the description of the mutant itself, but the stewardship of the mutant by its human discoverers, will warm the hearts of all y’all blamers:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/6187320/Snake-with-foot-found-in-China.html
PhysioProf
September 15, 2009 at 11:56 am (UTC -6)
I suppose it is conceivable that the leg is growing out of a teratoma–a type of tumor that grows from stem cells and can generate body parts like eyes, limbs, etc–that also contains mutations in genes that ordinarily suppress limb development in snakes. More likely is that it’s a fucking hoax.
ambivalent academic
September 15, 2009 at 3:48 pm (UTC -6)
As someone with a pretty solid working knowledge of limb development (and residual snake leg genes), I must concur with Physioprof. Hoax. Damn. That would have been cool.
ChelseaWantsOut
September 15, 2009 at 5:35 pm (UTC -6)
The Point is amazing. I have it on DVD.
Jill
September 15, 2009 at 6:48 pm (UTC -6)
“Very heavy rubber-palmed gloves, pliers to pull out the main clumps, a good scrubbing brush, and running water are advised by many.”
Or a blowtorch (the one you use for crème brulée, peut-être?) to burn’em off. Sorry, I neglected to mention the dangerous needles in the old post to which I linked.
Running water is now a faint possibility here in the Hill Country, thanks to four days of scattered showers, although sadly, the absence of same for the previous gazillion-and-a-half weeks has occasioned the result that none of the opuntia are fruiting this year.
PandanCat
September 16, 2009 at 4:02 am (UTC -6)
The needle-sticker-thingies on the tunas are killers. I learned that as a kid stealing my neighbors’ fruit. Good thing they were both pediatricians and knew how to get those teeny things out while not traumatizing a kid.
A flamethrower to get the needles off? Now there’s a real idea!
There’s also the related dragonfruit or pitaya that looks like it’s a giant tuna on a mutant paddle but is actually a lot less thrilling. Still, the red variety makes for great hot-purple smoothies. No spines on that one, thankfully.
speedbudget
September 16, 2009 at 5:17 am (UTC -6)
Wait. So when “tuna” is mentioned in this thread, it is NOT referring to the fish?
I have been so confused. LOL
Jill
September 16, 2009 at 6:33 am (UTC -6)
I have been so confused.
What with your Vagina being your Vulva and all.
Jill
September 16, 2009 at 6:40 am (UTC -6)
Dude, that snake-foot photographer needs to brush up on his Photoshop skillz. They are not mad.
Also, snake expert Long Shuai should know that an autopsy performed on a snake, mutant or not, is called a “necropsy.” That’s because snakes are just one long neck.
ambivalent academic
September 16, 2009 at 8:20 am (UTC -6)
“an autopsy performed on a snake, mutant or not, is called a “necropsy.” That’s because snakes are just one long neck.”
AHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Thank you for that. You just made my whole day. I am wiping the tears from my eyes. A good pun just makes everything better. Why yes, I am a total nerd, why do you ask?
@speedbudget: “tuna” = fruit of prickly pear en Espanol
PandanCat
September 16, 2009 at 8:35 am (UTC -6)
I would be seriously worried if we had been talking about the fish, what with the tuna margaritas and all. Hey, maybe the snake ‘shopper can help us, uh, discover a paddle with the other kind of tuna, gills and everything! There’s a mutant right there that’ll put that legged snake to shame!
Friend of Snakes
September 17, 2009 at 10:35 pm (UTC -6)
Came for the feminism, stayed for the snakes.
The message today is twofold. First, the Telegraph is full of fail, no matter the subject it tackles. Second, the photo demonstrates the ubiquity of the response to the lowly serpent, be it by a Chinese or Texan (Chief Blamer excluded, of course), that being to bludgeon the creature to death.
That looks like Dinodon rufozonatum, an English common name being red-banded snake, although we may presume that Mrs. Dean Qiongxiu didn’t refer to it by either of those names. It’s a rear-fanged species, harmless to humans; its venom helps subdue its amphibian and reptile prey.
That large bulge at midbody is its final meal. The “mutation” is a leg of the animal it ate, probably a toad or frog, which ruptured its intestine and continued all the way through the body wall.
Friend of Snakes
September 18, 2009 at 12:58 pm (UTC -6)
Sorry for the weird-sounding post above. I was responding not to the original topic about mutant prickly pear, but to juliebee’s link to a story in the Telegraphabout a snake which didn’t get far on foot. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/6187320/Snake-with-foot-found-in-China.html