Tongue Trippin'

Today dear readers, I want to introduce you to the miracle berry or miracle fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum).

Say hello to this weird little bugger.



This is a west African berry with the ability to re-mix your taste buds like a mash up at a nightclub! It has the ability to change acidic foods to sweet - (sour, hot, etc.). In NY city, flavor tasting parties have become mildly popular where people pop some of these culinary chameleons and then down pickles, lemons, hot sauce, or all of the above at once! Any kind of sour/tart/acidic foods are changed to unusual sweet flavor combinations.

The fruit has something called "Miraculin" in it. (Real inventive scientific name huh?) Miraculin is a Glycoprotein that has no flavor in and of itself, but will alter your perception of flavor for up to an hour.

An article in the New York Times quoted tasters opinions as thus:

"limes were candied, vinegar resembled apple juice, goat cheese tasted like cheesecake on the tongue and goat cheese on the throat. Bananas were just bananas."

Times quote is from "A Tiny Fruit That Tricks the Tongue"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/dining/28flavor.html?_r=1

The berries are available to order over the Internet, but they are very expensive and perish quickly. They sell for about $2 or more a piece, and a freezer pack box of 30 is about $90 mailed overnight to your door.

Before you throw in the towel on "flavor tripping" parties being out of your price range, there are several companies that manufacture the berries in tablet form now and it is much less expensive.

I may have to spring for a box and let you know what it's like. The only question is, what food to try first? Maybe a bottle of Guiness with a Tabasco chaser? What, you don't think chocolate truffles and strawberry jam go together?



Reverend Rick

Cheers!

Here's to a new day, a brand new blog, and a brand spankin' new identity via technology.

Reverend Ricks Soap Box and Oddities is firmly founded in my bordom, my childlike sense of wonder, my no-holds barred approach to things like: the "english" language, the effervecense of culture and all things bubbly, the derivations of the word "to" and why this is unimportant, and later, we might even discover how a chinese typewriter works.

Let Reverend Rick guide you through the certainties in life and reassure you that nothing is certain. May I also point out that those who out-point their points, at a certain point, have lost their point.

So is it all pointless you ask? Is life meaningless? No, my friend. The world is imbued with confidence, with lust, with vigor, with rich vivacious ice-cream-like scoops of chocolaty lessons on this rocky road of life. Reverend Rick is here to serve it up cold and creamy, hot and fresh, oldie and moldy, hard and crusty, or whatever way you like it.


So raise your glasses high, then put them back on your face and take a drink to life and to Reverend Rick's soap box!