Local Food Heroes - Stephen Wheeler eyes-up aphrodisiacs
for Valentine’s Day
The restaurant business loves Valentines Day. Chefs have the opportunity to sex-up their menus for a busy night with some specially created dishes – usually with the inclusion of foods known for their aphrodisiacal properties.
Named after Aphrodites, the Greek goddess of love, aphrodisiacs have enhanced that loving feeling since Adam and Eve. Scientists have come up with drugs such as viagra to lengthen the sensual experience, but the ancient Egyptians popped salad-radishes as their love tonic, believed to improve the blood flow to all the right places. The Aztec gods meanwhile favoured chocolate to give them feelings of relaxation and pleasure.
Cow cod soup is the traditional love tonic in Jamaica. Think cod-piece and you’ve got the main ingredient from the bull (not the cow!) - cooked with bananas and red-hot chillies, in a white rum broth. Coming across this particular dish in the Cotswolds may be tricky.
At Mise en Place we always see sales of asparagus and strawberries increase around Valentines Day. In 19th century France, bridegrooms were served three courses of the vegetable at their prenuptial dinner. Marcel Proust said of asparagus “it transforms my chamber-pot into a flask of perfume”. Not sure how this chat-up line would go down during a candle-lit dinner nowadays. Strawberries are always a treat, especially if someone else is dropping them onto your tongue – try dipping in melted chocolate for a multiple whammy. Don’t expect them to be English this time of year. Most likely they’ll be from radish-loving Egypt.
Truffles and oysters, have erotic reputations perhaps due to their exotic rarity. Last week, on Rungis market in Paris (the largest food market in the world) Italian white truffles were selling at £3,400 per kilo. The composer Rossini said “I have wept three times in my life. Once when my opera failed. Once when I heard Paganini play the violin. And once when a truffled turkey fell overboard at a boating picnic.” Oysters were once the staple of the poor. In the 19th century, on any day, six million oysters could be found on barges tied up along New York’s waterfront, although the author Jonathan Swift said “it was a brave man who first ate an oyster”.
By the way, anaphrodisiacs have the opposite effect - hops and coriander being two examples. So if you’re loved one suggests a few pints and a curry on Valentines night, your evening may not go off with a bang.
To see the actual article, click here
13th February 2010
Love Apples!
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