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Monday, June 2, 2008
Miracle fruit tricks the tongue
Red berries that make beer taste like chocolate and lemons taste like candy? According to the New York Times there’s a “miracle fruit” out there that can make it so … a tiny treat that tricks the tongue into thinking, among other things, that sour is sweet.
Synsepalum dulcificum, a West African fruit, works thanks to a protein called miraculin which tricks the taste buds when they come into contact with acids.
The article goes on to say that bartenders have, not surprisingly, been experimenting with the fruit as well.
Here’s an excerpt of the story below … or click here to read the entire story.
Don Lee, a beverage director at the East Village bar Please Don’t Tell, has been making miracle fruit cocktails on his own time, but the bar probably won’t offer them anytime soon. The fruit is highly perishable and expensive — a single berry goes for $2 or more. Lance J. Mayhew developed a series of drink recipes with miracle fruit foams and extracts for a recent issue of the cocktail magazine Imbibe and may create others for Beaker & Flask, a restaurant opening later this year in Portland, Ore. He cautioned that not everyone enjoys the berry’s long-lasting effects. Despite warnings, he said, one woman became irate after drinking one of his cocktails. He said, “She was, like, ‘What did you do to my mouth?’ ” Franz Aliquo, 32, (a lawyer who hosts “flavor-tripping parties in New York) issues his own warnings. “It will make all wine taste like Manischewitz,” he said. And already sweet foods like candy can become cloying. He said that he had learned about miracle fruit while searching ethnobotany Web sites for foods he could make for a diabetic friend.
According to the article, “Curtis Mozie, 64, a Florida grower sells thousands of the berries each year through his Web site, www.miraclefruitman.com. (A freezer pack of 30 berries costs about $90 with overnight shipping.)”
Ever heard of these things? Better yet, ever tried one? Would you if you haven’t already?
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