The Aphrodisiac Encyclopaedia
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Whether or not the fig’s aphrodisiac qualities extend beyond symbolism, tradition and sexual suggestion is moot. The fruit does contain an unusually high concentration of flavonoids, polyphenols and antioxidants which can help strengthen and prolong sexual desire. There is nothing, however, that marks figs out from other fruit with similar nutritional payloads but less salty reputations. The brain is the largest sexual organ so psychological triggers are certainly not to be sniffed at. Better to simply go with the flow, tuck into that splayed fig’s juicy cavity and make like Cleopatra.
When it comes to enhancing the fig’s seductive power it is hard to improve on nature. There are a few tips to bring out the fig’s inner ooh-la-la. Ripeness is key to its sensuality and culinary possibility. Select oozing, soft to the touch, deep purple specimens from as good a source as you can find, preferably straight from the tree. Figs spoil very fast so are seldom good from a supermarket. To add a gourmet twist and bolster those aphrodisiac credentials you can inject the fruit with truffled honey to create a sensual, messy and utterly divine sex bomb. Serve as a starter or light lunch with salty goat’s cheese and basil crostini – eat with your hands and keep a few tissues handy for later.
Honeyed Figs with Goat’s Cheese and Purple Basil Crostini
Figs : 6
Truffle honey : 6 tsp
Ciabatta bread : 1 fresh loaf
Olive oil : 2 tbsp
Purple basil : a handful
Soft goat’s cheese : 150 g
Salt and pepper : to taste
Truffle honey is available from good Italian delicatessens – if you can’t find any, plain honey will suffice.
Cut the stalks from the figs and using a straw make a small hole through the top of each into the cavity of the fruit.
Warm the honey until it is very runny, then use the straw to suck it up and inject into each fig. Place the figs in a warming oven (80°C) for 5 minutes or on a sunny windowsill.
Heat a dry griddle pan.
Cut the ciabatta into six 1.5 cm thick slices. Dip each slice in olive oil on both sides. Then pop into the pan to cook for 1 minute on each side until crisp and golden brown.
Roughly chop the basil and mix with the goat’s cheese. Top the crostini with the mix and season generously with salt and pepper. Pop the crostini under the grill for a minute to brown and serve immediately with the warm figs.
MANGO
In India the mango is massive. The tree can grant wishes, and is a symbol of love, fertility and wealth. The leaves bring luck at New Year and bless weddings with babies. The fruit is the food of the gods. It can also feed more earthly appetites and is eulogised in Ayurvedic texts as a potent aphrodisiac.
The mighty Mughal emperor Akbar was so impressed by the mango that he planted the Lakhi Bagh, a grove of 100,000 mango trees. India is still the world’s largest producer, growing upwards of 13 million tonnes of mango a year – none of which are exported. Some years back I accounted for a few kilos of this gargantuan crop myself and had my own moment of mango magic. One woodland wander in southern India I came across a magnificent mango tree. It was the height of the mango season and the tree was heavy with fruit. The air was heady with sweet fragrance and hummed with insect energy. It seemed a good place for a moment’s repose. I picked up a fallen fruit, split it open and bit into the amber flesh. Sticky juice ran from my mouth whilst the floral sweetness intoxicated my refined palate. Fruit after fruit I devoured, tossing the spent stones on the ground. Saturated and sated with mango, I felt very good indeed, and wondered what I could do next. Fortunately my lady friend and no one else was near at hand.
In Ayurvedic medicine the body is believed to consist of seven elements: blood, bone, fat, plasma, marrow, flesh and sexual essence. Mangos nourish shukra dhatu (sexual essence), rejuvenating the male reproductive system and increasing the quality and quantity of semen. Mangos also feed rakta dhatu (blood), strengthening circulation. This boosts sexual energy and stamina, combating limp libido and wilting weenies. Mangos also get a mention in the Kama Sutra. This illustrious manual details the seven stages to flawless fellatio. The penultimate manoeuvre is coyly called amrachushita or ‘sucking a mango fruit’. The description on how to master this ancient art is less coy: ‘Take the penis deep into the mouth. Pull upon it and suck vigorously as though stripping clean a mango stone.’ When mastered, sucking the mango fruit should be rapidly followed by the last hurrah of the all too obvious ‘swallowing up’ stage. Not much left to the imagination there.
Amrachushita and Ayurveda aside, the flesh of a perfectly ripe mango is a sensual delight, slithery smooth, softly yielding and slick with satin juice. The taste is a mouth-watering fusion of sweetness and subtle acidity. The mango’s nutritional bounty of beta-carotene and vitamins C and E is responsible for its rich colour and addictive sharp–sweet flavour. It may also be responsible for the mango’s aphrodisiac reputation. Boffins at Berkeley University in California conducted tests on ninety healthy men and found that those with diets rich in these three antioxidants had the highest sperm count and semen quality. Mangos are also rich in copper, a mineral necessary for the production of red blood cells and hence good circulation. All of which chimes rather pleasingly with the ancient Ayurvedic beliefs.
Should you wish to dance the nocturnal mango tango there are plenty of wonderful ways to prepare this fruit. On a hot day in the dusty subcontinent, nothing refreshes quite like a frothy mango lassi – simply whizz up fresh mango with yoghurt, honey and milk. Another classic complement is lime, which contrasts zingily with the sweetness of the mango. This can be eaten just so, or mix with avocado as a summery side to a dish of lime-cured salmon ceviche. If you want to up the aphrodisiac ante and really strut your stuff, make a fresh mango salsa and serve with steamed bok choi and caramelised scallops.
Mango Lassi
Fresh mango pulp : 150 g
Greek yoghurt : 150 g
Milk : 150 ml
Honey : 2 tsp (to taste)
Salt : a pinch
Select a very ripe mango whose skin springs to the touch. Slice either side of the central stone and scoop out the flesh with a spoon.
Place the yoghurt, mango and milk in a blender and whizz until smooth.
Add the honey and salt to taste.
Mango Salsa with Caramelised Scallops and Bok Choi
MANGO SALSA
Mango : 1 large ripe specimen
Ginger root : 1 cm
Coriander leaf : 1 handful
Spring onion : 2 large
Sweet chilli dipping sauce : 1 tbsp
Fish sauce : 1 tsp
Freshly squeezed lime juice : 1 tbsp
Black sesame seeds : 1 tsp
As before, slice vertically to either side of the thin stone and scoop the flesh from the skin with a spoon. This is a good test of ripeness. Dice the flesh into as near as you can to ½ cm-sized cubes.
Peel the ginger and chop the coriander as finely as possible. Thinly slice the spring onion on the diagonal.
Mix the spring onion, mango, ginger and coriander with the sweet chilli dipping sauce, fish sauce and lime juice. Stir thoroughly to combine and leave for the flavours to mingle. This can even be done the day before serving.
CARAMELISED SCALLOPS
Scallops : 6 fresh and fat king scallops (10 for a main course)
Sea salt : 100 g
Boiling water : 100 ml
Cold water : 400 ml
Vanilla extract : ½ tsp
Clarified butter : 2 tbsp
Flaky sea salt : a good pinch
The next step is to brine the scallops to intensify their flavour. In a bowl combine the salt and boiling water, and stir until the salt has dissolved. Add the cold water and the vanilla extract. Add the scallops to the brine and leave to soak for about 10 minutes.
Remove the scallops, rinse under cold water, pat dry with kitchen towel, cover and leave to relax in the fridge for 2 hours.
DRESSING
Bok choi : 2 heads
Toasted sesame oil : 1 tsp
Rice vinegar : 1 tsp
Break the bok choi apart into separate leaves and steam for 3 minutes until lightly cooked.
Mix together the soy sauce, sesame oil and rice vinegar and add this dressing to the cooked bok choi. Allow the bok choi to cool in the dressing.
Heat 2 tablespoons of clarified butter in a heavy frying pan over a medium-high heat.
Season the scallops with a little flaky sea salt and place in the hot pan. After 3 minutes turn and cook the other side.
Serve the scallops in a line, each one on top of a small mound of mango salsa. Accompany with a heap of the dressed bok choi and sprinkle with black sesame seeds. Enjoy with a glass or two of chilled Alsace Gewürztraminer.
PINEAPPLE
Exotic and erotic, the pineapple has plenty to recommend itself to the foodie lover. Striking good looks, sweet, juicy and loaded with vitamins and enzymes, the pineapple has got it going on; and can probably get it going on for you too.
Christopher Columbus stumbled across the pineapple on his second voyage to the New World. In 1493 the expedition struck the coast of Guadalupe. The local Carib village greeted the pale-faced sea people with offerings of fresh pineapples. The pineapples impressed. Columbus shipped them back to Spain where they became an instant hit with the great and the good. At the most important banquets, pineapples had pride of place on the heaving tables of delicacies. At first only preserved pineapples were available to thrill their epicurean fans – the transatlantic crossing was too much for this sensitive fruit celebrity. Over the next centuries the enduringly expensive pineapple became a symbol of hospitality and largesse. It was a great honour to be treated to a pineapple-topped dinner display. The high cost, however, meant that the fruit was sometimes used purely for decoration as penny-pinching hosts would hire a pineapple for one night only – a glamorous fruity hostess to wow the guests.
The pineapple is not just a trophy. After dark it has the ability to perk up the most malingering of libidos. Manganese and vitamin C are key to keeping hormone levels sexy. A few slices of pineapple deliver the required daily doses. Bromelain provides pineapple with additional perkiness. This protein-digesting enzyme thins the blood, improves circulation and markedly improves disappointing pants-performance. The power of bromelain is also used commercially to tenderise tough meat – need we say more? Those interested in the after-hours oral arts will also be stirred to learn that pineapple is rather sweetening. Apparently effective on both sexes, pineapple delivers satisfied swallows all round – patrons of the oral arts should heartily applaud.
The gastronomic possibilities of the pineapple are far from endless. Its sour–sweet flavour is deliciously refreshing but difficult to combine with other ingredients. Lime-marinated chunks of fresh pineapple served with chilli gunpowder makes a refreshingly spicy cocktail snack. What better to nibble on when coolly sipping a coconut-water pina colada whilst savouring a tropical sunset? Let the meat tenderising and sweet swallowing begin.
PICKING YOUR PINEAPPLE
Once harvested, pineapples do not ripen any further. Unfortunately ripe pineapples do not last long. These two facts mean that most pineapples on Western shelves are not at their best. Make like an inquisitive hound, and sniff the indignant fruit’s flat bottom. The pineapple’s sweet aroma should penetrate the tough skin from here and here only. If the whole fruit smells the pineapple is overripe and has already started fermenting. If there is no fragrance at all the fruit is irredeemably underripe.
Pineapple with Chilli Gunpowder
Pineapple : 1
Lime : 1
Crushed black pepper : 1 tsp
Chilli powder (ancho if possible) : 1 tsp
Flaky sea salt : 1 tsp
Skin and core your pineapple. Cut into bite-sized chunks and squeeze the juice of one lime over the pineapple to marinate.
Crush the black pepper in a pestle and mortar and mix with a medium to mild chilli powder and the flaky sea salt.
Serve the pineapple in a bowl with a small dish of chilli gunpowder and dip away.
Coconut-water Pina Colada
White rum : 50–100 ml
Pineapple juice : 100 ml
Coconut water : 100 ml
Ice : plenty
The bon viveur’s take on the pina colada is clean and refreshing, substituting coconut cream with coconut water. Depending how boozy you like your beverages, measure out between two and four 25 ml shots of quality light rum. Shake the rum with the pineapple juice and coconut water. Serve over ice in a tumbler and garnish with a slice of pineapple and a slice of lime.
QUINCE
The belle of yesterday’s ball, the quince is an overlooked and under-loved aphrodisiac. Not many people know that the original marmalade was made from stewed quince. Still fewer know that said marmalade was Tudor England’s number one aphrodisiac. Look past the quince’s pale knobbly skin, raw bitterness and grainy flesh. Focus instead on its heady floral aroma and sharp, sweet cooked flavour. The reputation may be a little wizened but the mythic golden apple still has the power to charm your pants off.
The quince is a distant cousin of apples and pears, and looks like a cross between the two. Cultivated long before apples were on the menu, it is most probably the object of ancient references to apples. The apple of desire that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden was almost certainly a quince. In ancient Greece it was sacred to Aphrodite, the ravishing goddess of love and beauty. It was a ritual offering at weddings: at the end of the celebrations the bride would take a bite of the quince before entering the bridal chamber to join her new husband. It is easy to see how this pagan fertility ritual was hijacked in the tale of the Garden of Eden.
The nutritional foundation for quince’s sinful reputation is surprisingly sturdy. The fruit’s stand-out features are its delightful floral aroma and its extraordinarily high levels of pectin and plant mucilage. Quince’s aromatic essential oil has been extracted since Roman times, and is a key ingredient in come-hither perfumes. It has the same aromatic chemicals as the musky pheromonal pong of truffles. Dimethyl disulphide has been scientifically shown to act as a feminine sexual pheromone in both lab rats and golden hamsters. Quince’s high levels of mucilage, which is a sort of plant slime, are believed to aid the delightful slippery sliding of naturally lubricated love.
If you expect a ripe quince to have the texture and taste its nutritional properties suggest, you are in for a crunchy bitter surprise. Raw quince is extremely astringent and bitter. To unleash its charms it must be cooked and sweetened. The Greeks baked honey-filled quinces in pastry. The Romans discovered that stewing quince with honey resulted in a paste that set, the origin of all jams and marmalades. The granular texture of quince, even when stewed, is not ideal. To appreciate quince in all its sensuous glory, you need to strain its stewed paste through muslin. This is done to great culinary effect with membrillo, the classic Spanish sidekick to Manchego cheese. Slightly sweeter and less concentrated is quince jelly. Trembling on a crumpet at teatime or mixed through apple sauce for a porky Sunday lunch, it is delicious and well worth a few hours spent connecting with jam history.
Quince Jelly
Quince : 1 kg
Sugar : 400 g
Remove the stems and cores from the quince and cut into quarters, leaving the skin on. Place in a pan and cover with water. Heat gently and stir until all the sugar is dissolved, then bring to the boil and simmer for an hour.
Using a masher, pulp the cooked quince into something that looks like a sloppy, rosy-coloured apple sauce. Add a little more water if the mixture is too thick.
Place the sauce in a colander lined with two layers of cheesecloth and let the juice drip into a bowl leaving the pulp behind. This may take several hours.
You should get around 500 ml of quince juice from this process. Pour into a pan and add 400 g of sugar (the amount of sugar should be about 80 per cent the volume of juice). Bring to the boil
gently, stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved.
Place a jam thermometer into the jelly and skim off any foam that comes to the surface as it boils. Once the temperature reaches 105°C test the jelly by dripping a spoonful on to a cold plate. It should become sticky and tacky as it cools.
Pour the jelly into warmed and sterilised jars and screw on their lids while still hot. The heat will sterilise the headspace and as the jelly cools a vacuum will form which should keep the jelly good for years.
WATERMELON
Conspicuously large with brilliant red flesh, it is a little surprising that the watermelon’s aphrodisiac oomph evaded detection until only a few years ago. Originating in the Kalahari of southern Africa, this supersized relative of the cucumber has been cultivated since ancient times. Travelling to the New World on slave ships, it was in the southern states of the USA that the watermelon was first fully appreciated.
Such disparate figures as gourmet president Thomas Jefferson and wild philosophic poet Henry Thoreau were enthusiastic propagators. Mark Twain hailed the watermelon as ‘chief of this world’s luxuries, king by grace of God over all fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat.’ Whether or not this glowing reference is attributable to the watermelon’s aphrodisiac qualities is unknown. Watermelon has traditionally had a thoroughly chaste reputation – a staple of summer holidays, BBQs and pool parties. This all changed when a team of scientists from Texas discovered that watermelon was actually Viagra in disguise. Overnight the watermelon grew up, left the playground and started hanging out in cool cocktail bars and fancy fusion restaurants.