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When Flavors From Afar co-owner Nancy Krabill read about a small berry in The New York Times that alters taste perception, she was determined to bring miracle fruit (left) to Dallas.
Saturday night, about 30 people gathered at the shop to experience the berry's effect, which compels acidic foods to taste sweet.
You chew the flesh off the coffee-bean-size berry and swirl it around in your mouth. Then you're ready to taste.
The most pronounced effect was on lemon wedges. "It's still got the astringency," said Joe Sulek, a chef who does demonstrations for a meat market. "It still wants to make you pucker." Then sweetness floods your mouth. Talk about making lemonade from lemons.
Read on for more about miracle fruit.
Photo by WILLIAM DESHAZER/Staff Photographer
Local foodie (charter Slow Food member) and computer programmer Andrew Chalk felt it tasted "like you put Splenda on the lemon." Sugar, he noted, creates local hot spots of sweetness, whereas miracle fruit is like a wall of concentrated sweetness.
The fruit's official name is Synsepalum dulcificum, and, as The New York Times explains, a protein called miraculin binds with the taste buds and acts as a sweetness inducer when it comes into contact with acids.
Besides the lemon wedges, Flavors From Afar put out Chateau de Fromage goat cheese, which morphed into cheesecake on the palate, and balsamic vinegar, which Nancy said tasted like prune juice. Yes indeed, weak prune juice. Coffee-balsamic vinegar tasted like sweet coffee. To Sulek, it tasted like a Heath bar.
A plain grape tomato tasted "really sweet, sweet, sweet" to Kathleen Fischer, an educational consultant. "It's like someone dipped it in sugar."
One of the most unusual effects was with hickory-smoked pistachios. The berry heightened the hickory, and the meatiness of the nut had you thinking you were eating bacon.
The berries were the ruin of wine. A dry prosecco turned to sweet bubbly, and a dry Sicilian red tasted like alcoholic soda pop.
The effect lasted only about 30 to 45 minutes for most attendees. One thing the berry did not change: Tabasco, except to add a bit of sweetness. The receptors for chile heat were unaffected.
"This is kind of a fun thing," said Fischer. You can read more about the fruit in The Fruit Hunters by Adam Gollner. It's available as a Kindle download.
Nancy and Gary Krabill plan to host another tasting as soon as their next order of berries comes in. It's probably going to be a couple of weeks if not months, Nancy says. Curtis Mozie, the Florida source told Nancy that since The New York Times story ran, he's had 2,500 orders. Cost is $90 for a 30-berry pack.
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