miracle fruit: OVERRATED!!
i’m mad at internet. i had some miracle berries over the weekend. after reading the new york times article about miracle berries (or miracle fruit), and the wikipedia entry, and a bunch of random blogs, i was really reaaaally excited about trying them. here are some quotes i found on internet:
The berry rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy.
“CARRIE DASHOW dropped a large dollop of lemon sorbet into a glass of Guinness, stirred, drank and proclaimed that it tasted like a “chocolate shake.””
“Nearby, Yuka Yoneda tilted her head back as her boyfriend, Albert Yuen, drizzled Tabasco sauce onto her tongue. She swallowed and considered the flavor: “Doughnut glaze, hot doughnut glaze!””
“A large group of guests reached its own consensus: limes were candied, vinegar resembled apple juice, goat cheese tasted like cheesecake on the tongue and goat cheese on the throat. Bananas were just bananas.”
“… after eating [miracle fruit] stout beers taste like chocolate milkshakes, grapefruits taste like pixie sticks, cheeses taste like frosting, it will make even the crappiest tequila taste like lemonade (and strangely enough, it will make all wine taste like Manischewitz).”
so, as you can see, i was ready for the most magical nite of my life. beer that tastes like chocolate milkshakes?!? tequila that tastes like lemonade?!?!? limes that taste like… i don’t care, i only care about the first two. the internet seemed agreed about this effect so i don’t understand why society hasn’t collapsed with people drinking lemonade-tasting tequila.
i bought 10 tablets (made from the real fruit) off ebay (about $20 with shipping). i waited by the mailbox eagerly for about 6 days straight, until they finally arrived via certified mail. i sent out a txt/phone/myspace barrage to get everyone in the world to come over and try my awesome miracle berries.
3 of my friends showed up, and we tried them. i bought about $120 worth of food and liquor (YIKES?!) to try. the tablets slowly dissolve on your tongue and taste like cherry cough medicine coating your mouth. once they were done, we tried some berries and cheeses. the berries were very sweet but DELICIOUS! the best berries we’d ever had, probably. the cheeses were more subtle, with kind of a bland creamy flavor.
it didn’t take long before i cracked open my varieties of beer — including a few disgusting stouts (like guinness) to try. chocolate milkshake, here we come, right?!? WRONG! they tasted nothing like a chocolate shake — even my “double chocolate stout.” they tasted like cloyingly sweet beer. awful. tequila was even worse, and whoever said that cheap tequila tasted like lemonade must have been huffing gas instead of miracle berries. it tasted like cheaper tequila. the cider was worst of all, magnifying the sweetness to kids-cereal magnitudes.
the worst part of the miracle fruits was that the sweet taste wouldn’t go away!!! it sticks in your mouth for a good two hours. new foods taste somewhat normal after one hour, but i had a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the night. ALSO, i ate an entire lemon, which i could never do, and my mouth felt burnt up by acid, which it was.
the coolest thing about the miracle berries is it really DOES eliminate sour tastes (but not so much with bitter tastes). lemons taste like oranges and you can eat one in seconds (but i still felt the acidity). sour gummi worms taste like normal gummi worms. etc etc bla bla cool huh?
i’m glad i tried miracle berries once but i don’t think i’ll ever try them again. they’re kind of like salvia in that way, even though salvia is much more bizarre and strong. i recommend you try them once, just don’t have sky-high expectations like i did.
i give miracle berries a rating of 2 miracle berries out of 5 miracle berries. ^__^
