Mystery vegetable.

Thanks for these answers. Now I just have to figure out how to cook. The game's afoot...(groan).

Okay, I have access to a computer with a large monitor (my initial response was posted from a small notebook computer) and it is indeed a bitter melon.

I can find them at several stands at my town's farmers market. I'm sure a search of "bitter melon" either here or a general search engine will turn up recipes.

There are several ways of reducing the astringency, I have yet found one adequate to work for my taste buds.

Intriguing vegetable, but I'm still scratching my head over how best to handle it despite the fact that a half a billion people on this planet probably enjoy it. I'm probably just a wimp. ;o)

Looks like bitter melon to me. Nopales are flat and mostly smooth except where the needles are/were. I've not cooked with it (do you cook it?), but I have seen it often at H Mart, my Asian grocery store.

more specifically, i think that's an Indian bitter melon, called karela.

more specifically, i think that's an Indian bitter melon, called karela.

I saw something on TV about it. The Japanese on Okinawa supposedly eat it and live forever

Phil might be right. Is it cylindrical (bitter melon) or is it flat (nopales)?

The photo is so poor it's hard to tell.

Plus the Imperial-to-metric conversion is weird. You state that is 7x2" but then say it is 18x2 cm. Two centimeters is less than an inch, the conversion makes no sense.

I think its a bitter melon. it is hard to tell because it looks flat in the photo but I don't think it is. Too gnarly to be nopales I think.

The picture is a bit small and hard to see, but it appears to be nopal (or nopales), a Mexican cactus. There are over a hundred species native to Mexico.

You can use Food52 search engine or a general purpose search engine (Google, Yahoo, whatever) for "nopales" for culinary suggestions.