Flavor-Tripping Party

Photo credit: NYT

Willy Wonka created some pretty cool confections; edible wallpaper, The Everlasting Gobstopper, three-course meal gum. Yeah, but can he make piss taste like the finest wine?

Imagine, if you will with me, drizzling a spoonful of Tabasco sauce down your throat and tricking your taste buds into thinking you’re drinking hot doughnut glaze. Or how about scarfing down the cheapest tequila you can find and think you’re drinking lemonade? (Sadly, most of us treat liquor like this anyway.) Or, according to this site, “after eating one [berry,] stout beers taste like chocolate milkshakes, grapefruits taste like pixie sticks, cheeses taste like frosting, […] (and strangely enough, it will make all wine taste like Manischewitz).”

News is spreading about this berry, Synsepalum dulcificum, (or taami, asaa, and ledidi, as referred to by the locals) an indigenous berry to West Africa that has been known to us Westerners since the 18^th century. Miraculin in this berry is what gives it it’s ‘miraculous’ ability to transform sour to sweet which, in turn, will inevitably lead to mass amounts of people congregating to see if they can, in fact, salvage that last cup of chunky milk wasting away in the empty abyss that is their fridge, and actually enjoy doing it for once. (Cheese mustache, anyone?)

Miraculin itself is not sweet, but the human tongue, once exposed to miraculin, perceives ordinarily sour foods, such as citrus, as sweet for up to an hour afterwards.

There are a couple of small start-ups around New York and San Francisco that cater specifically for “flavor-tripping parties", but for a fee, there is a supplier in the states that will sell them to you at the going rate of $2.00 a berry with a minimum order of 30. Oh yeah, shipping is $30.00.

So is anyone game? I mean, we could always just bypass the Tabasco Sauce berry trip and drink doughnut glaze directly but what fun is in knowing what to expect shit to taste like? (Ew. Wait. No, no, you got me all wrong. Not in the literal sense. Although..."30 Flavor-Trippers one cup" anyone?)

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