Everyday differences in Puglia: Prickly Pears

Puglia Differences: an occasional series on things that strike this Brit as so very Italian.

Wandering round the market I saw a hardware stall selling, amongst the easily identifiable tools, these devices.

Closer inspection was no help and my Italian is not up to enquiring their purpose.

A friend enlightened me. The centre piece is to take a pole and the cups are for harvesting Fico D'India - prickly pears.

I have tried them out of interest but would not bother to repeat the experiment. Pretty dry and flavourless and full of pips. A bit like a pomegranate with all the juice and flavour taken out. And spikes!