What does Valentine's day mean to you? For some, it's a day to justify being single and loathe all those mushy couples holding hands at the park. For others, it's a chance to express their love and appreciation for their partner. But most can agree that it's about the food.
Thrugh the ages, immemorial people have used food to express themselves and to celebrate joyous occasions. Actually, it happened around the time when Marco Polo came back from Asia with recipes and cooking skills which launched the birth of modern day European cuisine and ended a dark age of burnt meat, and thin stews. But how do you cook up love?
Even before the days of Marco Polo, primitive cultures had identified the aphrodisiac: any food that could increase, love, libido and fertility. The word aphrodisiac comes from "Aphrodite", the Greek goddess of sexuality and love. The simple practice was to gather and consume any food resembling a phallic symbol or the reproductive organs of virile animals (although almost any food at some point in time has been proclaimed an aphrodisiac by someone). It was thought that these foods could impart their aura of love and virility to their consumer. And this practice is still used around the world in many cultures today.
However interesting and entertaining this “science” might be, some people may agree with me when I say that it's really not so much what you're eating that gives you that power of love, but the person that you're eating it with — an overlooked factor in all of this! The best aphrodisiac is not an oyster, or a shaving of rhino horn (which may be too dangerous to get to make it worth your while) but is, in fact, your significant other.
Although I could see, especially in cultures of arranged marriages, where you might not get the exact model that you wanted (if you know what I mean) that an aphrodisiac might have to be employed. In this case, it was probably the alcohol or drugs that might have gone along with it that made that night magical — or even possible.
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2011.