Hi,

Below is a photo I took yesterday of the fresh figs available in Panama.   I don't know the variety... I don't know if the variety can be ascertained from the picture; also, I'm almost 100% sure that they are imported.

All were hard to the touch, so obviously picked way too green :-(.    They are basically tasteless IMHO...

This should be outlawed :-)

 

Looks like unripe prickly pear fruits

Wow!   

They are labeled as "Figs", and the few times I have seen them before they look the same.   Also, the one time I tried one, I was very disapointed....   

Maybe that is why... they have mis-labeled these...   I'll investigate tomorrow.

Thanks,

Edgard

I just checked images on google, and indeed they MUST be prickly pear fruits.   They are being mislabeled at the supermarket.

Sorry about that.....   Thanks for the pointer.

Edgard

They are part of the ficus family after all. LOL

Opuntia ficus-indica

LOL.... I feel so dumb :-)

I'm thinking you translated "Higos" to Figs correct? They are in fact named "higo chumbo".

No question about it they are prickly pears " cactus fruit". In Italian they are also called "fichi d'India" witch translates to " figs from India"

Yes!    Probably that is what happened.   As this fruit is also unknown here, they mislabeled them with just "Higos", rather than "Higos chumbos" or "Higos de la India" or something else....

"Tuna" in Mexico

Ok folks here are all over the place, the correct Spanish word for Prickly Pear is Higos de Tuna, so the labelling was correct, there was no mistake. It is clearly not ficus carica. Prickly Pear is a fruit of a cactus, it is not part of the ficus family, and not related to figs. End of story.

Lol, Actually rafaelissimo I had already said that. End of story? I think everyone figured that out before you even posted. O.Ficus-indica is a close relative of a group of arborescent, fleshy-fruited prickly pears from central and southern Mexico; that the center of domestication for this species is in central Mexico. O.Ficus-indica may include clones derived from multiple lineages and therefore makes them family. End of story!!!!!

Gardencrochet,
is that a Black Madeira you are displaying in your profile?
Lovely Picture.

Hi,
Since this morning we have a translation course. In French they are called "figues de barbarie" . So figs from Barbarie. Barbarie being the Mediterranean coast of Africa (Morocco Algeria ...).
From a reading on line, those so called figs originated from South America. The name is a (XVIIIth / XIXth century ... Ok 18th 19th .... don't you guys and gals know the Latin numbers ... Latin like in South Europe, not south America ...) marketing name to make them exotic and attract customers.
The muscovy duck is here called "canard de Barbarie" too, for the same purposes ... But them both like potatoes and tomatoes have their origins in America .
By the way, when America was discovered, they thought they just reached India ... Thus the figs of India .

Yeah, those sometimes get called "figs." In Italian, they're known as "fichi d'India" or, "figs of India."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opuntia_ficus-indica

"Some of the common English names for the plant and its fruit are Indian fig opuntia, Barbary fig, cactus pear, spineless cactus, and prickly pear, although this last name has also been applied to other less common Opuntia species. In Mexican Spanish, the plant is called nopal, while the fruit is called tuna... ."

prickley pear definitely   have one in a pot under the eaves in my back yard.    bad panamanians    I am sure if it was a mary janie it would be labeled something else too.   LOL

clairifcation    dropped word in typing   I did not mean panamanians were bad    I left out  the word " translation"