More Aphrodisiacs!
Giving a Gift? How About a Box of Aphrodisiacs?
If you’re thinking of giving your sweetheart chocolates this year, here’s something you should know: history reveals that the chewy, gooey or otherwise luscious fillings are more than a voluptuous treat. For centuries, they have inspired another powerful appetite… as aphrodisiacs.
Think about ginger. You know it gives zing to a chocolate cream. You probably know it relieves travel sickness and sooths upset stomachs. Yet many also thought ginger increases circulation, heightening sensitivity in the erogenous zones. In an 1880 publication on the medicinal use of plants, Robert Bentley and Henry Trimen wrote: “It is a general stimulant, being one of many spices that are regarded as being aphrodisiacs...” The folks at UCLA’s biomedical library revealed a different source of its powers in their exhibition on aphrodisiac spices: “…gingerols, zingiberene and other characteristic agents that have made it a favored seductive flavor....”
Regardless of the cause, ginger’s powers are legendary. In a rags-to-riches story of the mid-1700s, Madame du Barry supposedly used ginger to lull her many lovers into a seductive trance as she climbed her way up France’s social ladder. Her last stop was as royal mistress to King Louis XV; unfortunately, the French Revolution did them both in.
Other flavorful aphrodisiacs include cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg, all from evergreen trees. Nutmeg is a particularly well-matched companion to chocolate. Before you give your loved one a box of nutmeg infused creams, be aware: it was once valued by mystics for more than its seductive properties. Nutmeg contains myristicin, a close cousin of mescalin, which causes hallucinations when consumed in large doses.
According to Harvey Wickes Felter, M.D., and John Uri Lloyd, the mellower vanilla also has aphrodisiac powers. In the King's American Dispensatory of 1898, they write: “Vanilla is said to exhilarate the brain, prevent sleep, increase muscular energy, and stimulate the sexual propensities… It is also considered an aphrodisiac, powerfully exciting the generative system.”
Another reason may be that vanilla belongs to the orchid family, with its famously romantic flower, and exudes the alluring scent of vanillin. The Mesoamerican native was also intriguingly rare, as only native hummingbirds and bees could pollinate it. In the mid-1800s, Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old French slave, discovered how to pollinate the plant by hand, making it widely available. Still the lengthily process of growing and processing the bean continues to make it expensive and exclusive.
A different matter could be at work, though. According to the folks at UCLA, the pods have decidedly female features. “The Spaniards likened the bean pods to a little sheath or ‘vaina,’” they explain, “which is derived from the similar Latin word, vagina!”
Perhaps the most renowned aphrodisiac is the warm, supple flavor that enrobes the vanilla, clove, ginger. I am speaking, of course, of chocolate. The emperor Montezuma supposedly drank great quantities of it for virility and power. A box of chocolates was required of male suitors in the late 1800s – a more or less gateway food to sex.
As for the actual chemical properties: research reveals that nothing about chocolate’s chemistry can inspire chemistry in others. We just think it does. Which leads to a pivotal point: truly good sex may have as much to do with the brain as the body. But a really good box of chocolates can’t hurt.
