Prickly Pear

Prickly Pears, known locally as Babutsa, is a cactus fruit that can be seen everywhere in Northern Cyprus. It's unpretentious, requiring no special care or water.
You can eat it raw, whole, or with the bones which are inside it. In this form it's good for digestion and helps cleanse the body. It's high in antioxidants, contains vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, and potassium. and has a smell similar to watermelon. It can also be used to make marmalade; be added to desserts and liqueurs; baked or stewed.
The only drawback of course, is that it's covered in thorns! If you decide to clean these off yourself the first thing you'll need is patience and the second thing you'll need is gloves. Start by cutting off the edges of the fruit from the top and bottom, then cut from top to bottom, remove the skin and voila - Juicy cactus figs.
But that's not all this wonderful barbed pear is good for. Ancient builders used it to built castles and fortresses would you believe. They cooked the cactus leaves to a jelly-like state, mixed this with soil and used it as cement because the composition was so strong. The famous Bellapais Abbey was built this way. You don't see any cement there and it's still standing centuries later. It also gets used for home security. How many burglars would want to climb over a prickly cactus fence?