A few months ago Nick mentioned that Fizzy Fruit may be introduced into some schools. Well many years before it made the news I tried my hand at making my own fizzy fruit at home. I had heard about the idea a few years earlier from people in the brewing industry when I was an assistant brewer during grad school in Seattle. It's pretty easy to do. I used an empty soda syrup keg, filled it with assorted fruit, added CO2 under pressure, and chilled it overnight. This carbonated the fruit, the same way soda is carbonated, so that it fizzed with tiny bubbles like champagne when you ate it.

Looking back, it was fellow blogger Joe D who taste tested that first batch with me in the winter of 1996/1997. Personally I didn't think much of most of the fruit. They all tasted good, and the fizz was fun, but except for the grapes, the fizz was more annoying than anything else. With the grapes it was actually enjoyable. I guess because they were small, sweet and tart, and you could pop whole ones in your mouth. I never thought the idea was going to go anywhere, but I guess it has.
If you check out this article on the current state of fizzy fruit, they make it seem like it's a secret and complicated process but nothing could be easier. Wal-Mart and 7-Eleven, just began selling Fizzy Fruit in select stores in the Southeast and Southwest. It seems that Disney plans a March promotion for Fizzy Fruit cups for the release of the film Meet the Robinsons.

There are some concerns about the fruit, especially will it cause sales and consumption of regular fruit to decline? Also it isn't really inexpensive. A five ounce package at 7-Eleven costs $2.49. A small cup costs $1.88 at Wal-Mart. This is many times the cost for the same amount of fresh fruit. Considering that the fruit isn't really that fresh by the time it has been processed, packaged, and made it to the stores, it's not a great deal.

So my question is, what's wrong with eating fresh fruit? Hmmm... maybe it's the fact that most commercial fruit tastes like cardboard. At least with fizzy fruit you get some fun with your cardboard tasting fruit.