In my blog article “Here and Back Again”, I mentioned that I will be making entries about new discoveries that I made. It maybe snippets of knowledge or information that I have learned either through reading, watching TV documentaries or news, or through conversations or by traveling. I just want to re-live the spirit of discovery and adventure that I once had way, way back when I was still a student. And I want to share these knowledge or information to my daughter and to the netizens who would chance upon my blog. This will be my first article under New Discovery.
The Miracle/Magic Fruit (Synsepalum Dulcificum)
It is just a small, red berry, about the size and and looks like the Philippine Birds Eye Pepper or more commonly known as Siling Labuyo. When eaten, it is relatively tasteless, but it alters the taste buds that makes the tangy Lime or Calamansi to taste like a sweet candy and vinegar to taste like my favorite apple juice. This is what give the Miracle Fruit (scientific name Synsepalum Dulcificum) its name.
I first read about this “magic” fruit in the September-October Issue of the Discovery Magazine. According to the article, this miracle fruit, because of the way it alters the taste buds, is the rage in New York and several restaurants and bars there, are organizing “flavor tripping” parties. In this parties, people would eat the miracle fruit and then would sample foods such as lemons, vinegars, Tabasco sauce and then be amazed at how these foods would taste different when eaten after swirling the pulp of the miracle fruit on their tongue.
One lunch time at the office, my staff were discussing about the fruit that one of my personnel brought to the office. They said that calamansi tasted like a sweet candy after eating this supposedly magic fruit. When I heard about it, I know they were referring to the Miracle Fruit and was pleasantly surprised to find out that this fruit is already here in the Philippines.
One of my staff, is the daughter of the known herbalist Rey Herrera, the man who formulated the famous Glo-Herbal (it is now known as Ka Rey’s Herbal) supplement. They imported several shrubs of the Miracle Fruit with the intention of adding thisfruit into the herbal concoction to make its taste more palatable. I requested my staff to bring some berries (and also to give me a shrub which I plan to cultivate). We had an instant flavor tripping party in the office. Calamansi tasted like sweet candy and hot sauce taste like a sweet juice drink. Kinky thoughts even entered my personnel’s mind when they talked about the possible things whose taste can be changed by this fruit (and laughed that even if the taste will change, the smell will not. Adult readers, I know you know what they’re pertaining to).
Upon doing an internet search about this fruit, I found out that this fruit was first documented by a French traveler Chevalier des Marchais during his travel in West Africa in the 18th Century. In the 1970’s there were some attemps to commercially produce the ability of the fruit to turn bitter and sour foods to sweet foods but ended in failure.
What gives this fruit its taste changing ability is the protein molecule “Miraculin” that allegedly distort the shape of the tastebuds so that they become responsive to acids. Thus, it makes bitter, sour, even spicy foods to taste like chocolate candy. One blog even wrote that the Miracle fruit is “like a candy Willy Wonka would have invented.” In New York, a single berry cost $2 or more. If my staff who let us sample the berry for free would found out about this, she would definitely go nuts
I have one shrub of this miracle fruit and hopefully, I will be able to cultivate it successfully. I don’t have commercial intentions for doing so(for God’s sake, its just one shrub), I just like to have a steady supply of this fruit to tease the tastebuds of my friends.
Here’s a link of the New York Times article about the Miracle Fruit : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/dining/28flavor.html?_r=3&oref=slogin
