The strangest thing I've ever eaten is a miracle fruit. Well, that's not entirely true. I should say that the strangest thing I've ever eaten is a tablet of freeze-dried miracle fruit-derived miraculin — and all the foods I tasted while under its influence.
Miracle Fruit Revisited: Are You Still Taste Tripping?
But that just doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
Miracle fruit – which dulls your sour taste receptors – was the subject of internet buzz a couple of years ago and became very popular in the spring of 2008, thanks in large part to a story about 'taste-tripping parties' in the New York Times. More than a year later, we're wondering, is this trend alive and well? Or has it already fizzled out? How many of you tried it? And did it live up to your expectations? Miracle fruit promised to remove the sour flavor from any food or beverage for about an hour. Some even claimed that goat cheese became frosting and hot sauce tasted like "hot donut glaze."
I went in search of miracle fruit after reading the Times article, along with thousands of other people. The few fresh berry suppliers I found were predicting delays for many months, so I tracked down an online supplier of the freeze-dried tablet form in the U.K. that promised shipment in a matter of weeks. Less than two months later, a tiny packet of tablets arrived.
I invited a few guests to my taste-tripping party, and together we assembled a spread of fruit, cheeses, sauces and drinks. When it was time for the tasting to begin, we each popped a tablet onto our tongue and followed the instructions to let it dissolve there and swish it around our mouths. It took about two minutes – a very quiet two minutes. And then we dove in.
We sucked on lemons, limes and grapefruit, and nibbled on cranberries, hot peppers and green olives. We sampled bites of goat, feta and aged blue cheeses and worked our way through the sauce bar, which featured two kinds of hot sauce, pomegranate molasses, soy sauce and four varieties of vinegar: balsamic, red wine, apple cider and orange champagne muscat. In the beverage department, we had Guinness, an IPA, tequila and lemonade.
To some people, goat cheese did taste like frosting. To others, it just tasted like goat cheese. I thought the Guinness was definitely chocolate milk shake-esque, but not everyone agreed. One person described vinegar as “sugar water,” but to me, it tasted just a little sweeter. Everyone agreed that lemons and limes tasted like candy, as did the cranberries. The tequila lost its edge and tasted like tequila-flavored juice – the most dangerous flavor shift, to be sure. Spicy foods and sauces, however, still tasted hot, if not tangy.
Everyone agreeed that despite a few extreme flavor shifts, the miracle fruit tablets mainly took the bite/edge/stinkiness (all words used) out of most things, allowing you to taste more complexity in the flavors, or in some cases, just a slightly different flavor.
It was a fascinating and bizarre experience, and although it left many of us with quite a stomach ache, it was ultimately a lot of fun.
Did you jump on the miracle fruit trend too?
Related: Strange Foods: Miracle Fruit
(Image: Miracle UK, Joanna Miller)
Tags
Ingredients - Fruit, exotic food, miracle fruit, miraculin, taste trippingRelated Links
- Don't Let Watermelon Go To Waste: Drink It!
- Seasonal Spotlight: Kumquats
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The New York Times - Peppers and More Peppers: Hot and Sweet
Hollywood, California - Tip: Five Ways to Use Naked Lemons
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I had never heard of this. How strange!!! I want to try it.
view ellehudson's profile
I did this a couple weeks ago. We took little tablets. It made lemons taste like candy. It also made wine taste like Manischewitz. It was an all around good/interesting experience. We also had stomaches later that day.
view Halley B's profile
The berries in the picture look exactly like the fruit on our edible dogwood tree (Cornus sp.). An Iranian in town loves to collect our berries for jams and other cooking uses. When totally ripe, they aren't bad.
view lona's profile
seems pretty lame. why would i want to dull my sour taste receptors and then get a stomach ache?
if i want to eat goat cheese, i want it to taste like goat cheese. if i want to eat chocolate milkshake/frosting, etc., then that's what i eat.
view crystalj's profile
I tried the actual fruit recently. It did make sour things taste sweet, though my mouth still puckered as I drank vinegar and sucked lemons.
view Joan A.'s profile
I had a co-worker last year who kept talking about this. She had a big sweet tooth and really wanted to lose weight by taking the tablets and then eating the healthy things she normally wouldn't instead of actual sweets. We all laughed at her and told it was a scam. Who would have thought it might have actually worked!
view amefree's profile
Having never seen Miracle Fruit in my country, I think it's safe to say that we're not STILL taste tripping here, but it's never made it to our shores.
Who knows, maybe I can buy up the world stocks of Miracle Fruit and start a fad of taste parties here.
view buda's profile
Weird, I just got an email about The Berry Fairy today.
I haven't tried it.
view jamiealyse's profile
Were the stomach aches from the miracle fruit or all the stuff you ate while you were "trippin'"??
view Charlotte's profile
a friend bought these and threw a taste tripping party this fall. some people claimed sour items were sweet. for me, a lemon barely registered above sweet. kind of overrated, but that's my fault for believing all the hype.
view Supergaijin's profile
Interesting, my friend bought me Miracle Frooties for my birthday and they do the same trick :)
I tried them yesterday and lemons really can be sweet ! Nice.
view JJosh's profile
About a year ago I got the tablets as well as an assortment of fruits/pickles/citrus to try. It was a blast...for the 10 minutes or so it lasted. Definitely a fad but a fun one. Pickles freaked me out. Tasted just like a sweet pickle as opposed to the harshly sour dills I had at the time.
I've noticed the new sweeteners on the market (mainly with stevia extract in it) give me the same feeling on my tongue/ mouth as miracle fruit did. You seem to mostly taste sweet at the back of your tongue as opposed to the front and these sweeteners work under a similar principle of tricking your taste buds into thinking sweet. Very cool stuff.
view jmorri26's profile
Charlotte, the stomach aches came from eating a combination of sour/acidic foods.
view Halley B's profile
I def. still am. Has anyone noticed developing a tolerance though? I've never gotten my hands on the real deal (always the tablets) but being the host of these parties I was bringing them to many social groups after the 3rd or so party I was noticing that it wasn't nearly the same as the first time and that even things like lemons weren't nearly as sweet as they had been before. Since the initial rush I've taken a pause but I'm a little perturbed by this to say the least.
view moroccomole's profile