Miracle Fruit Food Tasting

I was all set up to leave the topic of miracle fruit today, but when I got home last night, we kind of had an impromptu miracle fruit food tasting dinner.

My husband broke out of his beer cellar a Dogfish Head Festina Peche sour beer and a Deschutes Black Butte Porter, both of which we have had before and are easy to find. The Festina Peche, being a sour beer, turned syrupy, much like the other sour beer did that I had before when I had miracle fruit. My husband did not like it, and I ended up drinking it. The Porter took on a creamy kind of caramel quality, of which my husband said was kind of like a milk stout. Later, I tried it again, and I could still taste the hops, but it is a lower hopped beer, and the added creamy flavors did suppress it a bit.

As for foods, I used a list provided by Miracle Fruit Man as kind of a guide. Basically, we found there to be three categories: no change, syrupy sweet, and a slight change. The foods that had no change were ones like most cheeses, olives, and semi-sweet chocolate, we found no change. The syrupy sweet foods were ones like Ikea lingonberry sauce, balsamic vinegar, and lemon juice. Here is a run down of what we had, and how it changed:

• Porter Beer – creamy, sort of caramel
• Peche Sour Beer – syrup
• Granny Smith Apple – this tart apple was now a very sweet apple
• Cheddar Cheese – no difference
• Unknown Soft Cheese (Havarti?) – no difference
• Parmesan Cheese – this normally nutty sharp cheese got mellower
• Ikea Lingonberry Sauce – syrup
• Dill pickles – became kind of an interesting sweet dill taste, but not like sweet pickles since this still had dill. My husband, who gags on dill pickles, still gagged.
• Tomato – this was the BEST transformation, as it went from tasting just a large salad type tomato to tasting more like a cherry tomato or the small, really ripe, sweet tomatoes.
• Kiwi – very similar reaction as the tomato, where it now tasted like a sweeter, riper kiwi
• Kalamata Olive – no change
• Lettuce – no change
• Broccoli with Lemon Juice – the lemon juice got disgustingly sweet that I couldn’t eat it. The list included suggestions of oysters in lemon juice, but I have to wonder who would want a sweet oyster? I mean, we regularly do not sweeten our veggies and meat, so trying it this way was horrible.
• Semi-Sweet Chocolate – no change
• Dijion Mustard – no change
• Balsamic Vinegar – sweet with a little bit of pucker still
• Tabasco sauce – sweet and hot. We had two drops, and while the heat had been turned down due to the sweetness, it was still there. In fact, both of us later commented that we could feel our throats burning, but not our tongues.

I was all set up to have a salad since the lettuce and olives had no change, and the tomatoes were great, but the things I usually used as a dressing were now too sweet, so I abandoned that idea. I will also note that at the end of all this, we decided we needed to have a real meal, so I made nachos because I knew they would taste the same, and it didn’t take long to whip up.

Besides being a fun experiment, I could see how may those allergic to sugar, diabetics, or those seeking to lose weight might find this useful, as one could potentially bake desserts without sugar, using lemon juice instead and becoming reduced in calories. However, it would be easy to add too much lemon juice and therefore make it too sweet. The Miracle Fruit Man does have some recipes posted. Some of them I don’t think I would try, such as the watercress and endive salad because I just don’t think I would like my watercress and endive sweet, but other things like a fruit salad with yogurt dressing made with plain unsweetened yogurt sound great!