Fruit and Colors
This week the New York Times wrote about miracle fruit, the West Africa berry thats been dazzling foodies by radically altering their taste buds. It’s set to revolutionize dieting (although we’ve heard that one before,) but for now it’s a cool party trick.
After eating a berry, bitter and sour foods taste sweet. Cheeses, Brussels sprouts, mustard, vinegars, pickles, dark beers all tasted chocolate-y or fruity to the “40 or so people who were tasting under the influence of a small red berry called miracle fruit at a rooftop party in Long Island City, Queens, last Friday night.” Even Tabasco sauce tasted like “doughnut glaze.”
The language “under the influence” is intentional. Many have compared the experience to tripping. But there’s something so darned virginal about it. The hippies had acid, Montmartre had absinthe. Making food taste radically different is awesome, but it isn’t transgressive. No one’s ever going to paint Starry Night or write Naked Lunch after trying it. Plus, there’s no known danger in taking it — it’s a fruit after all.
Jacob Grier, food blogger, magician, and think tanker, has written quite a lot about miracle fruit over the past few years. There’s more at the blog where he contributes, EatFoo. One EatFoo writers says, “If you have the choice, go for the magic mushrooms, but otherwise miracle fruit is one of the weirdest food-induced experiences one can have. It’s like some weird new experiment from Willy Wonka’s factory, only Willy Wonka is some shady horticulturist from Fort Lauderdale known to the world only through his cryptic messages on obscure gardening blogs. But he came through.” (The “shady horticulturist” is Curtis Mozie, who charges $1 per fruit.)
What’s most really amazing about it, is our sense of taste is so influenced by visual stimulus. Most of us have a little bit of synesthesia. John Stosell once had his 20/20 interns take a blind taste test, arranged by Brian Wansink, author of the book Mindless Eating. Wansink, a Cornell food science professor, asked them which of two cups of yoghurt “had more strawberry.” Everyone answered one or the other.
It turns out it was vanilla yoghurt mixed with chocolate syrup of varying concentrations. Nobody noticed it wasn’t “strawberry” at all (well, partly because out unnatural “fruit” flavors are pretty arbitrary.)
Around the same time I was reading the article on miracle fruit, I was reviewing some of my delicio.us bookmarks on color theory. Every stoner has wondered, “is my orange, your blue?” But few people realize the answer — sort of — exists. People have a varying number of color-sensitive cones in the human retina, yet the brain tends to perceive them all the same way. Medical Optics researchers viewed the cones the pick up specific colors and found for the tests individuals, they all asked similarly depending on the color they were given to look at. (Of course, if you’re stoned you can debate whether this is the chicken or the egg for eternity.)
This isn’t a total digression from miracle fruit. Another experiment from the same researchers, involved several several people wearing colored contacts. After a little while adjusting, they reported they were seeing colors normally, as their eyes had adjusted. But researchers found that wasn’t the case. Under scrutiny, “even when not wearing the contacts, they all began to select a pure yellow that was a different wavelength than they had before wearing the contacts.” The researcher explained, “Over time, we were able to shift their natural perception of yellow in one direction, and then the other…This is direct evidence for an internal, automatic calibrator of color perception. These experiments show that color is defined by our experience in the world, and since we all share the same world, we arrive at the same definition of colors.”
So, I wonder if it’s not that the effect of miracle fruit really wears off after an hour, so much as our perception adjusts? I’d love to see a scientific study of it. In any case, I’m really astonished that it exists and works…. and can’t wait to try it myself.
- Christopher Williams, Untitled 2000
- John Baldessari, Six Colorful Inside Jobs
- Jim Dine, The Studio
- Dan Flavin, Untitled 1987
These images are taken from MoMA’s exhibit, Color Chart: Reinventing Color from 1950 to Today. It closed, but you can buy the really beautiful book.
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