In early 2000, I spent some time living in caves on the Canary Islands. The area was arid semi-desert and prickly pear cactus grew abundantly. The fruits were edible and delicious, but the small, hair-like spines that grew in clusters on them were very painful if they pierced the skin, as well as being very hard to see when trying to remove them.

I therefore carved a pair of cactus fruit eating tools to safely eat these fruit. They came in extremely useful!

(Image above copyright Karin de Coeyer.

From www.treknature.com)

The pronged tool would be pushed into the fruit, then twisted to remove it from the plant. The sharp-edged spoon end of the other tool was then used to slice open and peel away the skin of the fruit. The scoop- shaped other end of this tool was then used to gouge out any remaining tufts of hair-like spines.The fruit could then be held on the pronged tool and eaten using the spoon-like other tool. Juice ran away down a slit in the pronged tool, which was shaped like a cactus flower.