Category: Unexpected Associations

Anne

Food, I tried:
1. Vinegar
2. Lemon
3. Chocolate

Prior Associations:
1. Sour, acid, erosive, salad, wine, balsamic, raspberry, chips
2. Fresh, sour, summer, Tequila, juicy, lemonade, fruit salad, healthy, tea, garden
3. Sweet, soft, tasty, smelting, tender, unhealthy, ice cream, children

New Associations:
1. Sweet, juicy, summer, tasty, soft, fresh
2. Sweet, tasty, sugary, sweets, summer, fruits, happiness
3. Tedious, stale, medicine, unbearable,

I was really looking forward to this workshop and was curious about whether I would really taste a difference, and if yes, how I would experience it. Shortly before taking the berry, I became nervous and excited how the effect would impact my perceptions. As a result, I was very cautious when tasting the different food. I realized that my perceptions and associations regarding the food have changed dramatically after I had tried the berry. Normally before I bite in a lemon, I hesitate and shiver slightly. The sweet and juicy taste that I experienced while eating the lemon completely surprised me. And with the change in taste, my associations changed from sour to sweet and sugary. My attitudes for example towards lemons would change if this effect would stay over time. I would eat them without any hesitation and would enjoy them as much as I normally enjoy oranges. However, my perception of surprise and enthusiasm would change with frequency towards habitualness.

Jann Speyer

Foods tried:
1. lemon
2. vinegar
3. grapefruit
4. blueberry
5. jalapeno

Old associations:
1.) sour, healthy, bitter, juicy, tequila, party, cocktail, lemonade
2.) salad, sour, cough, acid, wine, balsamic, olive oil, unhealthy
3.) bitter, sour, healthy, refreshing, juicy,
4.) sweet, healthy, strawberry, cornflakes, fruit shake

New association:
1.) sweet, sugar, tasty, laughing, chocolate, sweets, happy,
2.) juicy, apple juice, sweet, healthy, drinkable
3.) sweet, sugar, tasteful, addictive, happy, not bitter
4.) salad, bitter, wired, boring
5.) salad, annoying, not tasteful

I have been really looking forward to this experience. I was expecting some minor changes in my taste, but what happened after I ate that tiny little pill left me speechless. I tried the lemon and the grapefruit first and could not stop laughing, as I couldn’t belief how what I was usually expecting to taste so sour and bitter could taste so good and sweet. I have been sharing and discussing my experience with a lot of friends. It is wired that in some way, the pill could be actually compared with drugs, as they are also changing your perception. I was also wondering why mostly unhealthy things taste that good and sweet and that it would be much more beneficial for humanity if healthy food would always taste that good.

Emily Paul

I tasted bread, lemon, radish, jalapeno, and white wine vinegar. I intentionally picked foods that I like eating, and made sure to include vinegar since I had heard that the effects of the taste-altering berry are particularly noticeable with vinegar.

The three images show my foods before I tasted them, the same foods after I tasted them before eating the berry, and then what was left of my foods after tasting them with the berry’s effects. I like how the last image shows which things tasted the most palatable to me after eating the berry. The most surprising taste I had was the jalapeno. I am not sure whether I unintentionally ate a seed with my post-berry bite but it was much spicier on my second bite; to the point that my eyes were watering and I could feel the effects of the spice in the back of my mouth and nose. One association that I carried forward was not eating the lemon rind. I did try it after taking this photo and realized that it also tasted quite sweet and good. I am so accustomed to not eating citrus rinds that I did not even try it at first. I was curious about doing this workshop. I have been to one flavor tripping event before but I was not as intentional about which things I tasted and thinking about my associations with them before doing so. I took a very slow and methodical approach to the workshop: arranging my bites, writing down associations about each, tasting them, then dissolving the berry, and then writing further observations after trying them again. I also approached this as a solitary activity at first, though I found that once I ate the berry and started tasting things I reengaged with the rest of the group because people were making a lot of connections through sharing their reactions to different foods and giving each other recommendations for what to try. I also found myself comparing my reactions to people nearby. The bread was the first thing I tasted and it tasted the same so I thought the berry might not be working and asked my neighbors. The connections that occurred through trying to make sense of a new experience were my favorite aspect of this workshop. If foods tasted like this all the time I would likely alter some of my eating patterns, and get used to eating very sweet tasting foods. Over time I think I would adjust my tastes to accommodate this new palate and they would no longer be surprising. Though I do think I would continue to be surprised when I tasted different dishes because while I may more quickly update my associations with individual food items (e.g. lemons are sweet) I might not think about how those individual foods are used in dishes I like (e.g. roasted chicken with lemon might also taste very sweet).

Dina Bseiso

I tasted most of the food options, but the food I was most curious about were the following: lemon, apple cider vinegar, sea salt and vinegar chips, and grapefruit.

Preconceived Associations:
sea salt and vinegar — sharp, numbing, salty
lemon — always in need of sugar, trickery, bright
grapefruit — irredeemable, bitter, offensive
apple cider vinegar — easily overwhelming, pungent, sharp

The majority of those food options I do not indulge in on their own. Save for the sea salt and vinegar chips, the foods tend to be accompanied by other contrasting flavors. Even so, I do not enjoy all of them. Whether alone or in a medley of other options, grapefruit tends to be avoided at any cost necessary. Although I expect it to be sour, like a lemon, I feel mislead by its color. I associate flavors of a pinkish shade (and often deeper) to be sweet. Whenever I give grapefruit another chance, hopeful that “this one” will be the sweet one that buries the previous experiences away, I’m deceived. Indeed, none of the food options before the mberry were sweet. Great to know that this one day would not be the exception, and adhere to the rule.

Enlightened Associations:
sea salt and vinegar — sweet, honey barbecue, gentle, smooth, not painful
lemon — subtle, timid, wholesome, subdued, anticlimactic
grapefruit — invigorating, pleasantly surprising, exciting, tantalizing, nectar
apple cider vinegar — a mistake, burning, bitter, offensive, a prank

Curious, excited, and anxious, I gave the mberry ample time to coat my tongue thoroughly. With some hesitation, unsure if I had given it enough time to settle, I took a bite out of my favorite of the food options: the sea salt and vinegar chip. Indeed, my perception of its flavor was wildly different; now, it was so sweet I likened it to a honey barbecue chip. The sensation was so delightful, I was sure to go back for seconds.

Next, the lemon. I’ve had sweet lemons before, but not quite like this. As if sugar had been sprinkled on it, or as though it was lemonade in a solid form, I indulged in the lemon and its peel. It reminded me of a Palestinian lime from my sister’s garden — subtly sweet, without a hint of sour. I also had seconds of this food.

The grapefruit was next (admittedly because I had forgotten about the vinegar at this time), and I was most skeptical of how I would receive it. Grapefruit has never been a hit with me, and yet it was perhaps my favorite experience of the day. Tasting grapefruit so sweet was enough to change my opinion of the fruit, even though I know I’m tasting it in this way under very specific circumstances. If anything, it revived hope in me that I may discover the sweet grapefruit all those grapefruit lovers seem to be lucky enough to find.

After such success with the grapefruit, I had high expectations for the apple cider vinegar. I foolishly took a hefty gulp, and regretted it instantly. The vinegar was not sweet. It burned all the way down my throat. It was the most unpleasant experience of the day, and quite frankly I would have had an unsweetened grapefruit over it any day.

Overall, I enjoyed this experience. I believe going in with low expectations was the key to enjoying it to the extent that I did, and becoming overly excited was a mistake. I do not believe, under any circumstance, will I be open to taking a straight sip of vinegar of any kind. I think I am more inclined now than before to taste the other items, mberry or no. If the food tasted like this once a year, I anticipate my curiosity and excitement for the “one different day” would build and peak, whereas if the food tasted like this all the time my excitement would plateau or come and go with the seasons as they currently do with other fruits.

David Eicke

Apprehension:
Having always been a picky eater, I am usually nervous about trying new things. I sometimes will gag on food items if my body finds them particularly objectionable, and the last thing I wanted to do is spit something up in front of my classmates. This was an interesting experience because, while I didn’t really try anything new, I did face the same uncertainty; I knew the tastes would vary from my established mental “database.” The question was: how much? Nevertheless, I was too curious to pass it up.

Experience:
I picked up a grape, a glass of vinegar, a lemon, some dark chocolate, and a tomato. The first thing I tried was a grape, which actually just tasted like a grape. So, initially, I was questioning whether I’d done something wrong. But then I tasted the lemon, and sure enough, it was much sweeter than normal. I did notice, however, that the first split second of the lemon taste matched what I was used to. It made me wonder if that initial contact tasted sour because I expected it to taste sour, and then perhaps the actual signal being sent from my taste buds overrode my expectations. A similar thing happened with vinegar: the smell primed me to expect a vinegar taste, and for the first split-second, I did taste what I’d previously come to know as “vinegar taste” before it started to taste like Apple Pucker.

This experience reminded me of something that happens with my slight colorblindness. I will occasionally see something as green, and then someone will correct me and tell me it’s red, and it will turn red in front of my eyes. It’s almost as if, with this experience, it was my taste buds correcting me.

Regarding Frequency:
I imagine there’s a threshold where something stops being surprising. For example, if some stereotype I have is upset once—maybe a female wins an all-gender weightlifting competition—I’d be really surprised. Then, if it happened again a few months later, I’d be surprised again. But if it kept happening, or if it happened once a year, my surprise would go away. But I don’t think surprise is a function of time, necessarily. I taste things every day, but weightlifting competitions (that I know of) don’t happen every day. I would anticipate that everything tasting different once a year would surprise me each time it happened, since there were so many instances of “normalcy” in between.

Alexander Jones

Existing Taste Associations
Grapefruit – sour, unpleasant, healthy, stringy, pulpy
Vinegar – pungent, intense, versatile, potato chips, salads
Lemon – sour, tart, seafood, salad dressing, zesty, refreshing
Chocolate – sweet, candy, desserts, brownies, rich, decadent

New Taste Associations
Grapefruit – bright, sweet, juicy, effervescent, refreshing
Vinegar – sweet, bubbly, thick, alcoholic, peppery
Lemon – citrusy, tangy, bright, sweet, refreshing, candy
Chocolate – powdery, dry, bitter, unsatisfying, unappealing

I enjoyed this workshop for two reasons. First, I liked that we put into practice some of the concepts we discussed in class. Specifically, practicing articulating our associations with these foods was a valuable exercise in getting me to think about such things more descriptively. Second, I liked how this exercise encouraged us to consider that an experience is more than just visual or auditory communication. Texture and taste can play an important role in the way we experience things, especially food. I went into the exercise with a positive attitude, excited to experience foods in a new way. I think that having this mindset enabled me to be open and honest with the sensations and associations of tasting each item. It was hard not to have any preconceived notions of what things might taste like, which led to even greater surprise when, for instance, lemons tasted like sweet candy to me. I am intrigued to try miracle berries again and show other people how they can completely alter the way food can be experienced.
I think that the tastes we tasted during this workshop are always present in foods. It was just a matter of masking or enhancing certain tastes that the miracle berries facilitated. I think tasting foods like this once a year would help develop one’s palette. This could lead to new cooking experimentation in trying to draw out or combine flavors that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. It could also lead to being able to pick out more subtle flavors or flavor patterns, like a sommelier attempts to do when tasting wines. I am actually very intrigued in trying this kind of experiment during a beer or wine tasting. If food tasted like this all the time, then we would become accustomed to these flavors and would be surprised if, one day, a lemon tasted sour. It would not be inherently good or bad if this was the case; it would simply be an adjustment of what we expected. In this way, both surprise and anticipation are damped when frequency increases. The less frequently we experience something, the less accustomed we are to it, and the more potential it has to surprise us.

Teresa Haun

Pre-Berry Associations
Bread – dry, stale, textured, crusty, carbs
Blueberries – healthy, delicious, antioxidants
Lemon – sour, bitter, not good on its own
Almonds – healthy, filling, salty, crunchy

Post-Berry Associations
Blueberries – very sweet, delicious, tastes like candy
Lemons – sweet, taste like an orange, tastes like candy, I want another!
Almond – tastes normal except a little less salty, still just as crunchy and textured
Bread – tastes a tiny bit sweeter , still just as textured and dry

I really enjoyed participating in this workshop and went into it very open to the idea of experiencing a small change to alter my perception of food tastes. I think my openness to the experience changing predetermined associations added to its effect, since the taste differences on some foods were somewhat subtle but I was looking for the differences as opposed to rejecting them. For some foods like a lemon, my associations changed dramatically after having the berry. Lemons are generally a food that you cannot consume on their own, which I found to be the case again before having the berry. Once I had the berry, it was actually enjoyable to eat a lemon and tasted like eating a piece of candy. I even went back to get more because they tasted so good! The blueberries tasted very, very sweet after having the berry and also seemed similar to the sweetness level found in candy. The almonds and bread both had very subtle taste differences pre and post-berry and if I hadn’t been looking for the differences, I think it’s very likely I wouldn’t have even noticed them. The almonds didn’t taste quite as salty as they did before the berry, and the bread tasted a bit sweeter after the berry.

If all food were to taste like it did after the berry just once per year, I think I would enjoy this since I could easily satisfy some sugar cravings without actually consuming much sugar on that day. As the frequency of days increased with this effect, I think I would be less content with the change. I definitely wouldn’t enjoy it if all food was to taste as sweet as it did after having the berry for longer than a day in the short-term, because manufactured food and produce wouldn’t have been adjusted yet. I tend to like savory foods more than sweet foods, so in the short-term it would very tough to adjust to everything tasting so sweet. In the long-term, recipes and ingredients in each manufactured food item like bread could be adjusted to add less sugar from the start, since the berry effects will add plenty of sweetness. For items like fruit in the long-term, I would guess that growers would look to create new varieties that are less sweet, since the berry will make up for the missing sweetness.

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.