Cactus fruit ice

What it is

Cactus ice (仙人掌冰) is a speciality of Penghu, the island county in the Taiwan Strait. It is flavoured with the fruit of a flat-stemmed prickly-pear cactus that grows along the coast. The fruit gives a purple-red colour and a sweet-sour taste. It comes as a soft, slushy ice, as ice cream or gelato, on shaved ice or as a popsicle.

Where it came from

The cactus is not native to Penghu. It comes from the region between Mexico and the West Indies, and the Dutch are said to have planted it on the islands in 1645. Locals call the ripe fruit the 'Penghu red apple' (澎湖紅蘋果).

The ice is much younger. The Yi family (易家) credit it to Yi Cheng Chiu-chih (易鄭秋枝). In their story, about three decades before 2020 her son Yi Ying-hsin (易英信) found clumps of cactus near Houliao Elementary School on a school nature walk. He picked some fruit for her just before Mother's Day. She set the fruit out on her stall selling fengru tea (風茹茶), a local herbal drink, and it sold out, which gave her the idea of turning it into ice.

Many Penghu shops now make their own versions. In 2020 a convenience-store chain launched a Penghu cactus soft-serve, and demand left the islands short of fruit.

How it is made

The fruit hides fine spines. Yi Ying-hsin slits the top with a cactus spine and squeezes out the soft flesh, which holds a clump of seeds. He says the green fruit is the sweet one and the red is sour. Heat spoils the colour: cooked for six minutes at 100°C, it turns brown. For cactus pearls, one Magong maker boils the juice down to a 26-fold concentrate and dries it to a powder. Its ice cream uses only juice, water and sugar.

How to eat it

A summer treat on Penghu. The Yi family's ice sits between slush and ice cream in texture and comes with taro. Shaved-ice versions add cactus jam, cactus pearls and a scoop of ice cream. Look also for cactus juice (仙人掌汁) and cakes or biscuits with cactus filling.