by OLIVER THRING
The pinky goo of Valentine’s Day draws near, as we are reminded relentlessly from various quarters. “Chef X has prepared a unique Valentine’s menu using naughty ingredient Y.” “New research reveals turnips are the vegetable of love, says Turnip Marketing Board.” Sainsbury’s launches heart-shaped cucumber.
Nonsense, all of it, but it got me thinking about aphrodisiacs, those comestibles reputed to license roving hands and cause people to leap into bed together with gay (and straight) abandon. Humans have always sought aphrodisiacs. Cuneiform tablets from 800BC recommend a grisly remedy for Babylonians who felt their mojos ebbing. Cut the head off a partridge, eat its heart and drain its blood into a cup of water. Stand the mix overnight and drink it the next morning. In ancient Greece Aphrodite was the goddess of sexuality, and her totem was a sparrow. It was believed these were randy little birds, and as a consequence their brains were eaten as aphrodisiacs.
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One Iranian trial suggested saffron might help men sustain an erection. In 2005, a group of Italian and American scientists found that amino acids in oysters and mussels triggered the production of sex hormones in rats. This would be the first scientific evidence that the most famous aphrodisiac in the world at least partly deserved its reputation. Iran, it should be noted, is by far the world’s largest saffron producer and so has an interest in promoting it, and of course the results of animal studies do not necessarily translate into success for human beings.
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