Yesterday, my friend, Angela and I went to a “Miracle Fruit” party that’s making some noise on the internet meetup social scene. (New York Times article) The fruit resembles a cranberry in looks and taste. It’s a little bitter and a little tart. You pop it into your mouth and bite into it as you swish the fruit around your mouth and tongue for a minute or so. There is a pit that can be bitten into but I opted to spit it out. We’ve noticed that the intensity of the fruit and the time that it took to take effect varied from person to person. For me, after a minute of having the fruit in my mouth, I noticed that it started to get sweeter.
After that I popped a cornichone (small French pickle) in my mouth, and it was sweet; more so than the bread and butter pickles even. I think most of us were pretty disgusted by the sweet pickle except for one man that embraced it. The sweetness is a sort of malty/bitter sweet tho, which I did not find very appealing. However, I’m one for a salty or sour flavor than sweet.
Grapefruits that were typically mouth puckering sour started tasting like sweet oranges. A chocolate cake with no sugar in it still tasted like a chocolate cake with no sugar, which is basically unedible in my book. Jalapenos that usually give me no problem set my face on fire. A glass of cabernet was leaning on the sweet and fruity side rather than its typical dryness.
The experience was definitely interesting but not really worthy of all the hype. The berries cost about $2/$3 each and are extremely perishable. I think its fun to try it once but really nothing to write home (or even a blog about).