Last night, I joined Jo Self and Bon Savant for a miracle fruit tasting. Miracle fruit is this berry, originally from West Africa, that changes the way one perceives flavors- namely sour to sweet. It is the rave as an artificial sweetener in Japan, and we used the pellets. The raw fruit is too difficult to get now because it has become so popular across the country for 'flavor tripping parties.' It seemed to me that the fruit doesn't transform flavors, rather it
inhibits sour taste receptors. In other words it doesn't make something sweet, you simply taste naturally occurring sugars because you can't perceive the sour chemicals that normally dominate a flavor profile...
We had a laundry list of ingredients, from habaneros to pennywort to bourbon to pisco. I'm guessing at about 45- 50 items. I left with a bit of a tummy ache! Some of the most drastic 'transformations:' sauerkraut tasted like sweet pickles, raw sour fruit turned into the best koolaid ever and Linenkugel blueberry tasted like Easter candy.
The area that showed most promise was in fatty meats. Ham could have passed for turkey and bologna became kinda bland, almost nondescript. I am guessing that becasuse fats, being a type of acid (ogliosaccarides a.k.a. fatty acids, right?) are subdued in flavor by the effect. It will be interesting to pursue this concept further, as any miracle fruit meal would have to include some kind of protein. I wonder if ribeye would taste like tenderloin? Perhaps some kind of rilette? What effect would it have on bone marrow? Fatty fish like spanish mackerel? Lots of questions here...
Capsaicin was unaffected, indeed became a much more aggressive flavor due to the lack of balancing flavors in things like kimchi. Garlic became napalm. Onions fared a bit better, I'd bet due to the higher amount of naturally- occuring sugars.
Bitter items, like turnip greens became much more rounded, once again due to the inhibition of acidic/tannic elements. Sardines turned sweeter, but still had every bit of the fishiness they normally have.
It will be fun to take what we know and start working on some recipes. If anybody would like the tasting notes, don't hesitate... I'll have them finished by the end of the day. The tablets can be found online and they aren't that expensive. A lot of fun for a cocktail party or coursed fix prixe! Beware, though, you really are eating all that stuff... consider the tummy-ache a badge of courage.