Plants

There are certain substances that can trick our minds and cause us to not only feel more relaxed than we usually are – but also can mess with our senses and cause them to be completely different. Usually these substances are alcohol or illegal drugs – but this time it comes in the form of a tiny red fruit.

The new ‘miracle’ fruit is a small red berry that when given to people will cause their taste buds to be slightly skewed. What do we mean? When Carrie Dashow tasted a Guinness that contained a large drop of lemon sorbet she said that it tasted like a chocolate shake.

Yuka Yoneda tasted the fruit and then was given tobacco sauce (a good amount). When asked what it was she told her boyfriend that he was giving her “Doughnut glaze, hot doughnut glaze!”

These are just two accounts of the 40 people who were given the red berry at a party in Long Island City, Queens last week. The berry rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy.

The host was Franz Aliquo, 32, a lawyer who styles himself Supreme Commander (Supreme for short) when he’s presiding over what he calls “flavor tripping parties.” Mr. Aliquo greeted new arrivals and took their $15 entrance fees. In return, he handed each one a single berry from his jacket pocket.

“You pop it in your mouth and scrape the pulp off the seed, swirl it around and hold it in your mouth for about a minute,” he said. “Then you’re ready to go.” He ushered his guests to a table piled with citrus wedges, cheeses, Brussels sprouts, mustard, vinegars, pickles, dark beers, strawberries and cheap tequila, which Mr. Aliquo promised would now taste like top-shelf Patrón.

Miracle fruit is also known as synsepalum dulcificum and is native to West Africa. Westerners have known about the fruit since the 18th century. The reason for the reaction hat it causes is due to the protein that it contains known as miraculin. This protein will bind the taste buds and will act as a sweetener inducer when it comes into contact with acids. Studies have been conducted and according to Dr. Linda Bartoshuk at the University of Florida there are no real dangers that are caused by the berry.

Aliquo said he found the fruit while searching an ethnobotany web site for foods that he could use to make dishes for his diabetic friend.

The party last week was his sixth “flavor tripping” event. He hopes to put on a much larger, more expensive affair in June. Although he does sell the berries on his blog, www.flavortripping.wordpress.com, Mr. Aliquo maintains that he isn’t in it for the money. (He said he made about $100 on Friday.) Rather, he said, he does it to “turn on a bunch of people’s taste buds.”

He believes that the best way to encounter the fruit is in a group. “You need other people to benchmark the experience,” he said. At his first party, a small gathering at his apartment in January, guests murmured with delight as they tasted citrus wedges and goat cheese. Then things got trippy.

“You kept hearing ‘oh, oh, oh,’ ” he said, and then the guests became “literally like wild animals, tearing apart everything on the table.” “It was like no holds barred in terms of what people would try to eat, so they opened my fridge and started downing Tabasco and maple syrup,” he said.

For all the excitement it inspires, the miracle fruit does not make much of an impression on its own. It has a mildly sweet tang, with firm pulp surrounding an edible, but bitter, seed. Mr. Aliquo said it reminded him of a less flavorful cranberry. “It’s not something I’d just want to eat,” he said.