In the mood for love

Aphrodisiacs are big business. Bookshops are filled with shelves straining under the weight of lengthy volumes on aphrodisiac cooking. Every Valentine’s Day sees a deluge of articles touting the charms of aphrodisiac dishes guaranteed to propel your partner straight to the bedroom. A simple Google search throws up 6,350,000 results. But do they work?

Named for Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sexuality, aphrodisiacs can be divided into those that increase libido and those that increase virility.  Here’s a look at some favourite foodie aphrodisiacs. The banana’s shape makes it an obvious choice of lewd food. Plus, the fruit is bursting with B vitamins and potassium, both of which we are told are necessary for hormone production. The internet throws up a handful of surprising titbits about the phallic-looking fruit. One says it was the suggestive shape of the banana flower, rather than the fruit itself, that led to its status as a sexual stimulant. An intriguing Islamic myth is woven around the suggestion that Adam and Eve covered themselves with the banana plant, not the fig leaf.  

From the garden comes the fiery ginger, a herb guaranteed to stimulate circulation. Similarly, spicy herbs like garlic and chilli are also supposed to whip you into a bacchanalian frenzy. The latter because of capsaicin, which improves circulation, warms the body and helps release endorphins.

But while chilli appears to be hot, chocolate is not. We can lay the blame for its supposed powers squarely at the door of the ancient Aztecs — legend has it that Montezuma imbibed copious quantities of chocolaty elixirs before stepping into his harem. The idea of chocolate as aphrodisiac has since tumbled down through the centuries, to us. It finally took the journal Sexual Medicine to jab a pin into Montezuma’s fancies. Chocolate does contain tryptophan, a chemical released in the brain during arousal. It also has phenyl ethylamine (PEA), a stimulant that is released when people fall in love; but both, lamentably, only in tiny amounts.

Instead, experts suggest we turn our gaze to the pungent charms of cheese. Stilton, for instance, has been proven to contain far greater amounts of PEA than chocolate. But this time, science and legend do not stand far apart, for Casanova himself plied his partners with red wine and cheese before a frenzied night of passion.

Closer to home
Spurred into action by this wealth of information on aphrodisiac foods, Mumbai chef Nachiket Shetye, together with bpbweekend.com, created an aphrodisiac menu at his restaurant East, in 2009. Curious diners partook of various ‘intercourses’, including champagne and liquorice soup (both romantic stimulants), appetisers and main dishes made with ginger, honey, basil, pine nuts and coriander, and a sweet treat at the end —banoffee pie, with pineapple rum coulis playing a supporting role. Shetye had done his research well. There was no chocolate lurking anywhere on the menu.

Meanwhile, in 2008, in Hong Kong, another Mumbai chef Zubin D’Souza published a book called Khana Sutra (not to be confused with Khanna Sutra by Vikas Khanna). D’Souza scoured the country for recipes rumoured to boost the libido. Try his Sandal dhoop ka tamatar shorba.

He also writes about powerful aphrodisiacs from Africa and Europe. One such is an African tribal potion, which gives a man the strength to 70 cows should he so feel the urge.

For those looking for even more romantic recipes to try at home, Allied Publishers have printed Kama Bhog, a collaboration by the masters of Indian food — Jiggs Kalra, Pushpesh Pant and Marut Sikka. In the introduction, they write, “For years we have pursued this quest for the Holy Grail — from the jungles in the Himalayan region to the Malabar Coast and sat at the feet of vaidya / hakeem in Lucknow and Delhi and purloined recipes from the palace and princely kitchens…We have consulted allopathic physicians, botanists and biochemists to cross check the safety and efficacy of these ingredients- all of them non toxic and traditionally used in Indian food.”

The result is a cornucopia of delicious dishes, with ingredients all conspiring to turn you amorous. Who wouldn’t be tempted by a fragrant serving of Moong-e-mohabbat?  The authors clarify that the Indian epicurean tradition stresses on fare that alters not just physical but mental states of being. Whereas elsewhere, much emphasis is given on foods that are said to enhance physical prowess; vaidyas of yore concocted recipes based on the awareness that sex begins in the mind, a position largely endorsed by scientists today.

The academics
Amy Reiley, author of Fork Me, Spoon Me: The Sensual Cookbook, is an MA in gastronomy from the Cordon Bleu culinary schools. She largely agrees with Pant and Kalra’s views that sex begins in the mind.

“People always ask me, What’s the food that’s going to act like Viagra?…The truth is there isn’t one. Viagra was made by chemistry. But a lot of foods can promote sexual health by their nutritional value. I also think there’s a little bit of the power of persuasion involved. If someone tries these but adamantly believes that they will have no value as aphrodisiacs, well, they’ll probably tell you that they had no effect,” she told National Geographic.  

On the other hand, a stern entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica warns of hack science available online. “Of the various foods to which aphrodisiac powers are traditionally attributed, fish, vegetables, and spices have been the most popular throughout history... it must be concluded that the reputation of various supposedly erotic foods is based not upon fact but upon folklore.”

Perhaps it is time to soften that stance. In what was possibly a first, the American Chemical Society revealed that in 2005, a team of American and Italian scientists had analysed oysters from Naples only to discover that the bivalve can indeed increase the levels of sex hormones in men and women. A few years later, an Iranian study performed on rats published in the journal Phytomedicine in 2009 claimed that saffron had a “positive effect on sexual function with increased number and duration of erectile events seen in patients with erectile dysfunction”.

Food for thought
Books such as Khana Sutra by Mumbai chef Martin D’Souza and Kama Bhog by maestros Jiggs Kalra, Pushpesh Pant and Marut Sikka invest faith in the power of  exotic recipes.  A description of Shola-e-dil in Kama Bhog reads: “This spark of the heart is inspired by the glories of Avadh: we recreated this delicacy of quails stuffed with a magical filling. It is rich in tradition, rich in taste.”