For Valentine's Day: The Foods of Love

Cine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus is the Latin maxim loosely translated as “love grows cold without food and wine.” Eating has romantic connotations. We have the word aphrodisiac for foods that evoke sensations similar to lovemaking (they cause blood to stream through our veins, making our skin flush) or supply (think of a glass of wine) a lingering feeling of warmth, happiness and looser inhibition.  In just about every culture, alchemists and chemists have experimented with foods hoping to devise these  seductive potions and hormone formulas to provoke carnal desire, stimulate attraction, promote fertility, and perhaps most importantly cure impotence.

Here in time for Valentine's Day are some of the best known aphrodiasic foods:

Chocolate

Scientists discovered chocolate contains tiny traces of tryptophan, a chemical that helps the brain produce serotonin, a feel-good hormone. It has traces of an amphetamine-like chemical called phenylethylamine, the one the brain pumps when we fall in love. Chocolate contains theobromine, a mild caffeine-like chemical that dilates capillaries, increases energy and stimulates the heart—all euphoria enhancing. Plus it satisfies a sweet tooth. Mayans believed the tree its bean pods grow on so divine, they named it cacao, “God’s Food.” The Aztecs may have launched a connection between chocolate and sexual desire, for their divine emperor Montezuma supposedly consumed as many as fifty golden goblets of chocolate a day to enhance his sexual prowess. Discovering chocolate in the New World, Cortez’ conquistadors brought “cocoa” back to Europe in the name of love.

 Wine, or the grape

Vino from the Latin vinum comes from Venus, the Goddess of Love. Grapes, the source of wine hanging in ripe and juicy clusters, were an ancient symbol of fertility in many of the world’s major religions, and followers understood the benefits of fertility depended on a touch of Venus, a stroke of love. So when grapes were squeezed and fermented into wine, they naturally represented the offspring of Venus, Eros, god of sexual attraction. That made wine the ultimate love potion. Wine’s alcohol content releases inhibitions. Thanks to grape skins left in the fermenting vat, red wines are full of the chemical resveratrol, an antioxidant that seems to increase blood flow and improve circulation, activity that sets the body up for excitement.

Apples

Before Adam, Eve and the “forbidden fruit” (the Latin word for apple comes from malum, or “bad”), apples were a symbol of love. In Greek myths, the athletic Atalanta vowed to marry any man who could beat her in a foot race. Hippomenes fell in love with her and asked Aphrodite for help. The Goddess of Love gave him three golden apples and instructed him to throw them on the track. 
Atalanta got distracted and lost the race.

Asparagus

According to a wildly popular lookalike theory that took hold in earlier times, the asparagus spear, which triumphantly shoves its way up through the Earth, should boost the male libido. Bridegrooms in 19^th C France were thus served a pile of spears on their wedding night. But it turns out there’s more to asparagus than its suggestive phallic shape. Dense with potassium, folic acid and vitamin B6 among other critical nutrients and fiber, asparagus increases production of histamine, a chemical that causes capillary dilation and muscle contraction, both functions the body requires to reach orgasm.

Chili Pepper

These make our skin flush, body warm, heart race and blood course more rapidly through our veins-- all sensations remarkably similar to those that might arise during bedroom activity. Chemicals in chilies release brain chemicals called endorphins that block pain and spread the sensation of pleasure throughout the body. Their even more key chemical, capsaicin, gets the blood pumping and stimulates nerve endings. The chili’s mouth-watering heat, bright color and suggestive shape also make the pepper a believable aphrodisiac.

Spices

Ginger warms the body and forcefully pumps blood to stimulate its furthest, most sensitive parts. Cinnamon has an enticing scent and heats the body even more, thus possibly revving the sex drive. It’s one of the oldest aphrodisiacs around, mentioned in the Old Testament in Proverbs. "I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. Come let us take our fill of love till morning." In Rome, supposedly using the word for cinnamon was like calling your lover "sweetheart" or "darling."

Vanilla

The vanilla bean is the fruit of an exotic orchid vine whose rarity and scent make it a natural aphrodisiac. Many believe just the smell of vanilla increases lust. The Totonacs of Veracruz, Mexico are said to be its original cultivators. According to their legend, when Princess Xa'nat’s father forbid her from marrying a mortal, she fled to the forest with her lover, but they were eventually captured and beheaded. Where their blood smeared the ground, the vine of the vanilla orchid sprang up. The plant thus became associated with undying love. After the Aztecs conquered the Totonacs, their beloved vanilla begin its journey to becoming the food flavoring we love today. The Aztecs, who thought of the exotic bean as a “little sheath”, a “vanilla”, joyfully added it into their own beloved food, chocolate.

Oysters

The oyster is one of the most legendary aphrodisiacs. Venus aka Aphrodite is the Goddess of Love whose name gives us the word aphrodisiac, and myths describe her birth as rising out of the sea on an oyster shell, something believed to resemble and thus symbolize female genitalia. The oyster’s saltiness and texture are also considered reminders of that, so they are fed to men. That’s good news because the oyster is packed with muscle-building glycerin and the mineral zinc, known to fortify the male hormone most closely associated with sex drive, testosterone