African Miracle Fruit

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Over the weekend, Chicken John hosted an African Miracle Fruit BBQ at his house. In his words:

This Sunday, 6/24, Susan Staley is gonna give you a miracle. Fruit. It's pretty neat. You eat this fruit and BAM!!! OJ's guilty. You just know it. The miracle happens on your taste buds, so you can't taste other foods. IT's really weird. So 6:00, I'll crank the grill up and we'll make it a food thing. Bring something to eat/drink. I'm sure someone will do something entertaining.

From the wikipedia entry on Miracle Fruit:

Although the berry itself is not sweet, it contains an active glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin. When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue's taste buds, causing bitter and sour foods (such as lemons and limes) consumed later to taste sweet. This effect lasts between 30 minutes and two hours. It is not a sweetener, as its effects depend on what is eaten afterwards, but has been used to sweeten bitter medicines.

I'm going to have to mail order some more of this stuff. It's amazing. I ate a berry and 3 minutes later I ate a lemon and it was sweet like lemonade. I also did a balsamic vinegar shot. Mmmm mm. Tasty. Seriously. It's crazy. And OJ is guilty.

Comments

[Garth]

[this is good] Cool!  They've got a pill version in Japan that doesn't have the sensitive timing requirements of the fruit (it can be transported a stored for a little bit).  We asked the folks at our Japan office to send a box over and had a similar experience in the private confines of our usability lab (we didn't have enough to share with everyone).  For us, limes were the big hit, much tastier than the lemons after the sour punch was taken out.  We didn't try the balsamic vinegar, that sound like a good idea.  We did try salt and vinegar potato chips which were good.  Sour patch kids were also pretty yummy.