One spot them all around: in the gardens, next to the road, in the wild. The big cactus bushes are very green and very prickly! Do not collect its fruits without gloves or without pincer...Thats why the fruit "ficho d'India" means in Italian "the fig of India" and has the English name "prickely pear" (while the German translate it as "Kaktusfeige"):-)
Of course if you want to taste them without the adventurious part of collecting them yourself there are plenty of locals selling them. In some fruit shops one may even find them already pilled off. In a Palermo trattoria, where locals have quick lunch I had a plate of three "fichi d india" lovely cleaned and ready to eat as a dessert! The one that look greener actually tasted even sweeter than the other two!
Another common for Sicilian and exotic for the rest of Europeans (at least for the colder countries) fruit is the pomegranate. These fruits were already open in the sun and some thursty birds had enjoyed almost all fruits of the tree below!
