Miracle Fruits, wigs and all that jazz

The star of our lunch was Mama Suze’s homemade curry and roti canai. For roti out of a packet (brand is Katoomba), it was deliciously fluffy thanks to Suze’s amazing frying and fluffer skills. To top it off, Suze had sticky ribs in the oven. I’m loving the day already,

Shez made an ultra healthy lentil salad and Helen spoke to my heart with homemade sushi. But my groans were reserved for Simon’s incredible fried scallop and prawn dumplings, with a hoisin dipping sauce (recipe please Simon!). If I didn’t like these people so much, I would’ve just taken that whole crispy dumpling platter and went home to enjoy it.

But the main event was tripping our tastebuds! On a serious note, there are many benefits to these pills, such as improving the taste of food and medicines for people who are ill or (more crazily) for diabetics or the weight-conscious to reduce their sugar consumption when cooking and eating (seriously, really?). But for people like us, it’s a chance to ingest foods we normally wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole!

You are suppose to let the pill dissolve in your mouth and coat your tongue – a feat harder than it sounds when it feels like you’re eating chalk and cardboard and your saliva glands aren’t cooperating. Too bad there isn’t a pill to make Miracle Frooties tasty.

The ultimate personal test was a sour watermelon warhead, which I optimistically popped in my mouth only to spit it out immediately and rub my cheeks. The vinegar tasted like a backyard-shed vodka made in a bathtub, while the bitter melon and grapefruit tasted the same (cue sour face).

But all was not lost. Lemons were amazingly palatable and soon we were devouring lemon wedges with gusto. Guiness beer tasted like coffee, while passionfruit pulp had a faint taste of toffee and caramel (chocolate according to Shez and Suze). Intriguingly the male contingent detected neither of these flavours in the passionfruit. End of season strawberries were luscious and oddly citric acid was like powdered candy. So much so, that Yas couldn’t stop devouring it. Let this be a lesson to you all: it may taste like candy, but it’s still citric acid! And yes, poor Yas paid for his excessive citric consumption later!

Other foods we had tested were sour cream, pomegranate, yoghurt, kiwi fruit, wasabi, dried sour prunes, ponzu sauce and more warheads. It was a strange way to spend a Sunday afternoon but it was flavour-triptastic.

Desserts are always a highlight even when you’re full from lunch and ill from vinegar. With no less than six desserts on the menu, we were seriously spoilt! Chocolate, fruit, pavlovas, cake, cupcakes and a tart, we had all sugar bases covered.

Miracle Frooties are readily available online, so why not hold your own flavour tripping party? Just don’t say I didn’t warn you about citric acid overdoses!

A big cheers to Suze for welcoming us to her house (hope you enjoyed your housewarming gift!), Billy for those crazy pills, and everybody else for making a fantastic lunch and a myriad of desserts.