Archives for the 'miracle fruit' tag
Miracle fruit man
The Miami Herald devoted some space last week to Curt Mozie, the retired postman whose miracle fruit trees hit the big time a few years ago.
“There are two major reasons miracle fruit has become popular recently, and one of them is Curtis Mozie,” said Adam Leith Gollner, author of The Fruit Hunters, a book that devotes a chapter to the history of the miracle fruit. “The fruit languished in obscurity, until Curtis came along and decided there was a venture in making this available to the public.”
That’s one reason, but what was the other? I’d guess it was my friend David Barzelay hosting his first miracle fruit party in DC in early 2007. At the time it was very hard to find the berries, with David having to track Curtis down through comments he’d left on message boards. That party led to our blog posts being picked up by BoingBoing, my own parties ending up in the Wall Street Journal and the BBC, and a typically behind-the-times NYT trend piece a year later.
At the time, I think the berries were $1 apiece and Mozie had plenty on hand. Today:
Mozie now ships out roughly 3,000 miracle fruit a week, for $3 a pop and sometimes can’t keep pace with the demand.
Curtis is a nice guy and I’m happy to see him doing so well in retirement with these improbable berries.
I’ve also been meaning to review Gollner’s Fruit Hunters book. It’s entertaining throughout and very informative; until reading it I had no conception of just how vast the world of fruit is and how our markets barely scratch the surface of the planet’s wondrous offerings. It’s some of the best food writing I’ve read in the past few years.
Crispy Podcast Episode 4
In the fourth episode of our weekly podcast, we discuss the news about food shortages, Burger King’s ill-fated Foie Gras Burger, PETA’s synthetic meat initiative, miracle fruit, Duckathlon IV, the alleged dangers of competitive eating, and this week in bacon – LA bans bacon dogs.
BTW, that’s me with the meat is murder t-shirt recording the podcast. If you ever want to watch and listen to us live as we record the show, just follow me on Twitter (@jerrybrito) and I will tweet when we’re ‘on the air’ and provide a URL. We have a chat room going while we record and we take listener questions and comments. Pretty nerdy, but pretty fun. Live versions of past shows are here.
We hope you enjoy this episode and that you’ll tell us what you think. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the show for free. You can grab the RSS feed or click here to subscribe in iTunes. That way you’ll get it every week.
Miracle Fruit Turns Sour Sweet, Blogger into Star
Friend and DC food & drink guru Jacob Grier has become something of a go-to guy when the press needs its fix of miracle fruit, a mysterious berry with the power to turn diners’ palates upside down. Jacob attended a miracle fruit party about a year ago, where he investigated the rumor the
…unusual fruit possesses an amazing property. Eating one temporarily alters one’s sense of taste, making sour, bitter foods taste sweet and delicious. People in West Africa, native home to miracle fruit, have reportedely used it for centuries to make their diets more palatable.
It’s also a literally forbidden fruit. Attempts to market it and its active protein miraculin to diabetics were mysteriously thwarted by the FDA in the 1970s, relegating miracle fruit to underground cult status.
[...]
The fruit itself is mostly tasteless, though slightly sweet. The pit is surrounded by a weird, slick layer of pulp. It’s not bad to eat, but one would get bored with it pretty quickly. The true test came next, as we again sampled the lime. The result? Utter astonishment. The very same lime we’d tried moments before suddenly tasted like it had been dipped in sugar. All the stinging acidity was gone, leaving only the pleasing citrus and an amazing sensation of sweetness that left us craving more.
Indeed, it’s true. I’ve eaten miracle fruit with Jacob, followed by foods I know to be sour tasting richly sweet.
Well, Jacob’s love of the fruit led him to blog about it a ton, which led to a bunch of blog coverage, which in turn led to a front-page article on another of his tasting parties in the Wall Street Journal. Just yesterday, a recent tasting party Jacob put together appeared on BBC Radio, alongside this excellent story on the fruit’s positively wacky effect and history. Check out Jacob’s wrap-up of yesterday’s coverage here.
