Author: Ellen Van Wyk

Elena

I got excited about this activity from the moment I read the New York Times article “The Miracle Fruit, a Tease for the Taste Buds”. I had no idea a fruit like that existed! To be honest I think my expectations were too high. Please, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the experience a lot; however, I think my predictions were a little unrealistic. I thought everything was going to taste very different. As a consequence I was not as surprised as you might have expected.

My associations didn’t change dramatically. Probably I got the weirdest ones after eating a grape. What automatically came to mind was: a) sweetened figs, b) something this sweet cannot be healthy.
I think it would be okay if something like this would happen once a year, but I wouldn’t like it to be all the time. I love lemons and limes the way they are! Nevertheless, I’m also aware that sooner or later I would get used to it (it will be the new normal).

Something that would have been amazing (although I’m not sure if possible at all) is not to have been told about the specific effects of the fruit. We could have been prompted to work in pairs. Student A would pick some food from the table, while Student B would eat it with his/her eyes closed (careful with food allergies!) Then Student A would ask Student B to guess each one of the options and to tell him/her the associations that come to mind. The process should be repeated exchanging the roles of the students. Finally, the food would be revealed in the order it was tasted. I believe the surprise effect would be maximized in this way.

Noura Howell

I tasted lemon, radish, and almond.

Before trying miracle berries, I had very positive associations with lemon. My mom uses a lot of lemon when making Egyptian-style lentils, a comfort food for me as my mom is half Egyptian. Also sometimes I eat just lemon and salt, which I learned from her. Recently when returning to visit the small town in Florida where I grew up, my mom and I stole some tangerines from a neighbor’s tree that was overflowing with fruit. We both enjoyed them. Then later we heard from another neighbor that nobody every picks from that tree because the fruit is too sour!

I didn’t have strong associations about radishes except that they are fresh, sharp, and certain varieties are referenced in jokes from particular anime I really like. I like almonds but had no strong feelings, just some minor associations with luxury, elegance, water wastefulness, and nutritional value.

Tasting miracle berries was disappointing. I was just waiting for the effects to wear off. Lemons were disgustingly sweet which went against all my personal, familial, and cultural associations with them. Radishes were fine. Almonds were blissfully the same. I felt like miracle berries might be popular because sweet is a popular flavor, and was again reminded that my food preferences are non-normative here for better or worse.

During a one-time occurrence of these perception changes, I sought to maintain my prior associations with lemon because the associations are related to my identity. If the perception changes from miracle berries occurred only rarely, I would probably try to avoid eating lemons during that time in order to preserve my prior associations. If lemons always tasted so sweet, then I’m sure my mom wouldn’t like them and so my associations of them would have been different from the start. I’d probably associate them with fruity candy which I’ve always thought was kind of gross.

Weina Chen

Foods tried:
1. Apple Cider Vinegar
2. Lemon
3. Tomato
4. Peanut Butter
5. Dark Chocolate

Associations with each (before):
1. Sour, acidic, sharp, clean, heard about it as a shampoo substitute
2. Sour, garnish, refreshing, clean, eyes watering
3. Sweet, Italian food, surprisingly a fruit not a vegetable, versatile, gardening
4. Protein, nutty, filling, some people have severe allergic reactions, jelly
5. Bittersweet, romantic, comforting, delicious, deep

Associations with each (after):
1. Sweet after-taste, acidic in stomach, sugar substitutes, unexpected, honey-glazed balsamic sauce
2. Like lemonade concentrate, summer, Popsicles, lemon sorbet, surprise
3. Like sugar sprinkled on tomatoes, home, garden salad, fruit, juicy
4. Exactly like before, expected, everyday, normal, underwhelming
5. Exactly like before, expected, delicious, normal, still a nice treat

I was really excited to participate in this workshop because I was intrigued by how a food can change your perception of taste. Every time I am in a restaurant and the server uses elaborate words like “earthy, woody, musky” to describe food, I am taken aback by how many adjectives people use to detail what they eat. I was curious to see whether this workshop would let me in on some of those insights. As a result, I think I may have been too excited and had too high of expectations for the workshop. While some of the foods did taste differently, I think I expected a bigger change than there was. My associations only changed slightly for the more sour foods and tended to lean towards more dessert-y or summery associations because of the extra perceived sweetness. If food tasted like this once a year, I think I would make it a point to eat lemons on that day (I normally cannot stand the sourness of lemons), but otherwise my behavior might not be so different. If it was like that all the time, I think the novelty would wear off quickly and soon no longer be of interest. As frequency increases, I feel like my perception of excitement and surprise decreases as the feeling settles into normalcy.