Flavor Tripping with Miracle Fruit

So today my work sponsored a "flavor tripping" party with miracle fruit, the crazy-ass berry that makes sour things sweet, and negates heat and bitterness as well. I enjoy cooking and eating, and though I wouldn't really consider myself a "foodie", I enjoy discovering new flavors and trying new foods. I didn't eat anything new today, except the miracle fruit, but I certainly experienced some new flavors.

The berry itself is no big deal. You stick it in your mouth and squish it around for a while. It tastes a little sweet, but that's about it. Then you starting tasting things...lots of things. Here's a list of what I tried, and how I felt about it...

• The first thing we all tried was a wedge of lemon. They were delicious. It was like eating lemon drops, only better. I think we all would have eaten an entire lemon if we could have. I wish we'd had limes, too, but we did have...
• ...grapefruit. Also delicious, though I'm not sure how sweet it was before the miracle fruit, so it's difficult to say how sour it was to begin with.
• The dill pickles got a thumbs down from me, basically because because the berry made them taste like bread and butter pickles, which I hate. I like dill pickles just the way they are.
• The tomatoes no longer tasted anything at all like tomatoes. They tasted more like cherries, or some other sweet fruit. Very strange, but not unpleasant.
• The Tabasco sauce was by far one of the strangest samples. I dumped a full teaspoon or so on my tongue, and it was undeniably sweet. Not a hint of heat at all. Not that Tobasco sauce is that hot, but usually even those of us who have destroyed our palates with hot sauce can pick up a little heat from Tabasco. I also tried some Vietnamese hot sauce (you know the one, with the rooster on it?), with similar results.
  
• Along the same lines, the peperoncinis and jalapenos were also pretty odd. Without the normal heating effects of the caspacin, you could actually taste the vegetabley parts of the pepper.
  
• The wasabi was confusing. I always feel wasabi in my nose first, and that's still what happened here. But I put a big ol' glob of it on my tongue and just had a vaguely horseradishy flavor. At least until I swallowed. The back of my tongue apparently did not get enough miracle juice, so I got a bit of a jolt when I actually swallowed.
• Chocolate stout. I tried this one first before the berry because I'd never had the particular brand before (and I forget the brand now). Tasted pretty stouty with a bit of a chocolate after taste. But after the berry: YooHoo.
• Roxy Rolles (from Magic Hat)--This usually hoppy beer tasted more like a weakish summer ale after the miracle fruit. The beer lost all its bite, sadly.
• Oddly, the fruit did nothing to aleviate the bitterness of black coffee. The coffee just tasted like coffee. Also, the raw onion tasted just like raw onion. Bleh.
  
• I tried a co-worker's homemade kimchi, but since I didn't really know what it tasted like before the miracle fruit, this particular test was kind of wasted on me.
  
• I'm glad I saved the raw garlic clove until last, because that pretty much tainted everything that would come afterwards. The garlic tasted like garlic, without the slight burning sensation raw garlic can sometimes cause. But I can still taste it on my breath 8 hours later, so I don't highly reccomend this one.
• And finally, to top things off, I tried my own concoction of coffee, lemon juice, beer, tobasco sauce, pickle juice, and jalepeno juice. Not only did I not throw up, but it actually didn't taste half bad.
• OK, I confess that I actually topped things off with a handful of TUMS. It's important to remember that the fruit dampens the taste of acidic foods, but it doesn't actually neutralize the acid.
  

Final thoughts: I really can't recommend miracle fruiting enough. Today's taste test made what was otherwise a very busy, not-so-fun week into something truly memorable. I think these "parties" would definitely be best with a large group of people--we had about a dozen--and lots of things to try. In hind sight, we wished we'd brought more. Every site that sells them will have recommendations of foods and drinks to taste. Be adventurous. Try something you normally hate. Bring your TUMS.