The Miracle Fruit Plant, sometimes known as Miracle Berry, or Magic Berry (Sideroxylon dulcificum/Synsepalum dulcificum) is a plant first documented by an explorer named Des Marchais during a 1725 excursion to its native West Africa. Marchais noticed that local tribes picked the berry from shrubs and chewed it before meals. It is an evergreen plant that produces small red berries, with flowers that are white and which are produced for many months of the year. The seeds are about the size of coffee beans. The berry is sweet, and contains an active glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin. When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue’s taste buds, causing bitter and sour foods (such as lemons and limes) consumed later to taste sweet. This effect lasts between thirty minutes and two hours. It is not a sweetener, as its effects depend on what is eaten afterwards, but has been used to sweeten bitter medicines.

via wikipedia

Within minutes of consuming the berries, guests were devouring lime wedges as if they were candy. Straight lemon juice went down like lemonade, and goat cheese tasted as if it was "covered in powdered sugar," said one astonished partygoer. A rich stout beer seemed "like a milkshake," said another.

via WSJ

It's a tiny berry. But it works miracles when you eat it before sour foods. Lemons instantly turn from sour to sweet. Even a bologna sandwich turns to cake.

...my sense/mind didn’t quite get what was going on. Then i went for the lemon, and it really did taste like lemonade! Then the grapefruit, which was already pretty sweet… and what little sourness it did have was gone, it was sweeter/waterier tasting. The bigger bits of the pomelo became rather enjoyable! ... The chinese mandarin peels… it was not the pseudo-medicinal taste i despised as a kid, but tasted more like candied peels sans crunchy sugary bits on the outside!

... Definitely a fun crazy party food experiment that will leave guests with that look of surprised bewilderment...

via NOTCOT

Image courtesy of NOTCOT

How To Enjoy Your Miracle Fruit

Step 1:Purchase a selection of citrus fruits (lemons, limes, grapefruits), vegetables (rhubarb), cheeses (Humboldt Fog, bleu cheese), beer (Guinness, other dark stouts), and tequila (the cheaper the better). Lay your goodies out on a big table. Step 2:Wash your miracle berry. Step 2:Insert berry into mouth; swirl it around for approximately one minute, like a hard candy. Step 3:Bite into berry. Coat tongue with the berry's juice. At this point, the juice should be sweet. (There's a seed in the middle. You can spit it out or swallow it). Step 4:Taste a lemon wedge as a test. It should now taste like lemonade. Step 5:Proceed without caution.

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