I’ve just had lunch with my brother and sister in law. I feel as if I’ve just experienced a real Willy Wonka moment…

He was out the other night with some friends and heard about these “pills” you can buy online that completely change the way you taste things. I was not convinced. Sounded very dodgy and clearly illegal or else we’d be able to buy them over the counter and they’d be giving them to children before making them eat a piece of carrot, because I kid you not – anything that tastes sour – like lemon/lime/gherkins – you name it, tastes sweet!!

Totally bizarre.

You get given a pill like a vitamin which you have to suck. It is apparently made from a berry and for the next hour you have a completely different culinary experience. It reverses the acid to sugar apparently – a drug called Miraculin coats the taste buds and confuses the messages our tongue sends to our brain. Why hasn’t it taken off? What are the side effects? (I should probably have asked that question before I took one). I could start doing children’s birthday parties, serving only carrots and tomatoes that taste of sweets!!

Sadly, the very nice bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon blanc I bought round tasted of Liebfraumilch so avoid that – but vodka or cocktails tasted entirely different.

Here is what the packet looks like – “Simply turns sour into sweet”:-

and here were our tasting plates:-

Honestly, the tomatoes tasted as if they were sugar coated. We ate wedges of grapefruit, lemon and lime with gay abandon as there was no hint of bitterness. The Strawberries might as well have been made out of sugar. Beetroot too.

YAY – I felt like a child in a sweet shop with just a piece of carrot in my mouth.

I was a little worried my taste buds would stay that way, but sure enough, after about an hour they were back to boring old normal.

Anybody else had an interesting experience with them? What else tastes incredibly different? I’m going to organise a cocktail party unless I hear otherwise.

ps – sorry if I’ve just confessed to taking a highly illegal drug – please don’t arrest me – I didn’t know!!

Thanks to Kellogsville for your comment and further reading here http://people.howstuffworks.com/flavor-tripping2.htm