NYT late to the miracle fruit party

As ever, the Times notices a trend a few years old and reports it. It seems that trend pieces are okay to get scooped on… except… this piece… is almost exactly like the one provided by the Wall Street Journal more than a year ago.

Here I’ll feel a bit like Jorge Luis Borges writing Pierre Menard’s Quixote, if only because I just want to write that, but look at the comparison:

NYT:

CARRIE DASHOW dropped a large dollop of lemon sorbet into a glass of Guinness, stirred, drank and proclaimed that it tasted like a “chocolate shake.” …

They were among 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. The berry rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy.

WSJ:

At a party here one recent Friday, Jacob Grier stood on a chair, pulled out a plastic bag full of small berries, and invited everyone to eat one apiece. “Make sure it coats your tongue,” he said. …

Within minutes of consuming the berries, guests were devouring lime wedges as if they were candy. Straight lemon juice went down like lemonade, and goat cheese tasted as if it was “covered in powdered sugar,” said one astonished partygoer. A rich stout beer seemed “like a milkshake,” said another.

This is ridiculous. The lede didn’t have to be about a party of miracle fruit tasters, but TWO reporters from the Times figured it might be a good way to go. Hey, they’re in good company, right? But really? In the course of researching for their article, they didn’t type “miracle fruit” into Nexis and Factiva to see what pops up? Maybe not even into Google, where the Journal piece was sure to appear?

I went to Grier’s second miracle fruit party, which, conspicuously, went uncovered by the Washington Post. However, they might want to get in on the action.

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