Mango Upgrade

I wrote this in Oct 2008, and submitted it to Nature's SF 'Futures' Stories but it didn't get much attention and wasn't published. http://www.concatenation.org/futuresindex.html

I bite into the mango. The taste is sweet and explosive. Almost too sweet to be true. The texture is not quite right, but I get used to it after a few bites. Almost perfect.  Not a bad job, considering that mangoes are extinct of course. There was that unfortunate incident with the GM cultivars and the borer beetles in Florida a decade ago.  The vectors swept around the planet and within four years there wasn’t a single mango tree left. Fortunately all was not lost because the wonders of technology saved the day.

I see the reporters huddling in the rain outside waiting for me to come out.  Their tenacity and resourcefulness never fails to amaze me. It was our competition at EMI who first recorded and patented the mango taste.  They beat us to it by 48 hours. We all developed our own neurological interfaces - there was no real competition there.  The key was unlocking the subtle complexities in the taste and identifying the components that gave the fruit it’s unique flavour.  With exclusive rights to the mangos they went on to corner the exotic fruit market. The switch from music to taste was swift and brutal. It was inevitable I guess. Even my daughter was downloading free music at the age of five.

It was I who coined the phrase that the press loved the most.
“Ladies and gentlemen”, I said to them at the launch of our new business model, “We are changing our business from a taste for music to the music of taste”.  The way I see it no-one is obliged to listen to music but everyone needs to eat. Music fashions come and go but no-one ever seems to get tired of the taste of beef.  

The combination of encoded bioinformatics interfacing with millions of nano-neuroreceptors enabled the taste of a mango to be captured and even enhanced by orders of magnitude. The authenticity of the taste was locked into the degree of complexity expressed by the neuroinformatics. Now all that remains is the genius of modern day economies: your ability to pay for quality.   

The beauty is that only Avogadro qualtities of bio-molecules are required to trigger the receptors and the informatics do the rest.  The result has been that there is now no more requirement to food than a basic cereal grain laced with a cocktail of taste triggers and nutritional boosters. I was personally accused of damaging the world economy by reducing international trade by 18%.  I unlocked the secret of beef.  My company soon owned all the mainstream meat flavours. Next we focussed on fruit and vegetables. We traded our vegetable flavours for Virgin’s R&D programme on herbs and spices.  Most of our fruit flavours went into juices. People were surprised when we gave up or vegetable portfolio. Beef simply tastes better with garlic and origanum. Our share price proves we were right. The business cases got sweeter as the expensive global transport costs were disposed of.   My friend Dough was working for one of the pharmaceutical giants.  We subcontracted the essential nutritional components to them which meant that a diet of “meat” and “ice-cream” was now more than sufficient to meet anyone’s nutritional requirements. No more bitter Brussel sprouts or coaxing children to eat their vegetables.  The Nobel prize for peace came as a bit of a surprise.  We were hoping for one in Chemistry but EMI beat us to that one too. With the cost of food at it’s lowest point ever in inflation adjusted real prices we had effectively staved off poverty induced malnutrition and averted potential trade wars.

I take another bite of my mango. So sweet. But the texture is not quite right. My wife says she’ll buy me a mango upgrade for my next birthday.  She also says she’ll bake me a mango flavoured cheese cake to celebrate. I can’t wait!

We exit the building to an explosion of floodlights.  A cacophony of voices rises up to greet us.  Screamed questions from the press are drowned out by the hissing abuse from a gaggle of protestors.  I swat at the drone cameras flying in for close-ups. I step on a poster printed on squeaky digital paper for just long enough to catch the words “causes cancer”.  I slam the door behind me and give my wife a reassuring kiss as the chauffeur wheel-spins us past the barricaded throngs.  My wife smiles weakly. She has never really got used to the love and hate that fame has brought us.    

I don’t understand all the fuss. We didn’t say it was the healthiest option or that people should eat our food only.  Personally I prefer the locally produced organic alternatives for most foods with the exception of beef (where I think ours is better than the original) and mangos (where I don’t have much of a choice).  My marketing economist keeps reminding me that the markets are always right.  
“Get the price right, Fred, and the consumer will make the right choices. It’s entirely in their hands.”

Reviews

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Hi Alex, interesting in its concept and engaging in its style. A little gem of a dialogue piece.

[Alex Moondragon]

Many thanks John. It was limited to 850 words and forced me to ensure that every sentence added value to the story.