The Aphrodisiac Encyclopaedia
Page 9
Meanwhile bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the linguine for the required time.
Once cooked drain the pasta, and toss with the cabbage, lardons and grated Parmesan.
Crack and separate the egg, set the white aside and stir the yolk into the pasta. Season with salt and pepper as required.
Place a large pile of pasta on a plate and shave an indecent quantity of truffle on top.
Seafood
ANCHOVIES
The key ingredient in pasta alla puttanesca (prostitute’s pasta), anchovies have long been considered a prelude to amorous activity. Anchovies themselves are a small marine fish that shoal in profusion across the globe’s temperate seas, perhaps most notably in the western Mediterranean. Although eaten fresh and marinated in vinegar as boquerones, anchovies are principally preserved in oil following a gutting, salting and maturing process. The preserved anchovy fillet is not for the faint-hearted palate, packing a gutsy, salty, savoury flavour and a nostril-engulfing fishy fragrance. The intense taste and aroma could certainly be considered sexy in a visceral, down-and-dirty kind of way; not exactly nice, but nasty is surprisingly popular.
The most notable nutritional feature of anchovies is their high level of the B-complex vitamin niacin. Sexual function is predominantly controlled by the endocrine system of glands, principal of which is the pituitary gland. These glands secrete the hormones that flowing around our bodies get us hot and bothered, firm and frisky and generally unable to concentrate on the matter in hand, unless of course one’s matter is already in one’s hand. In order to function properly and produce sufficient hormones these glands have specific nutritional needs. The pituitary gland requires supplies of zinc, vitamin E, and last but not least B-complex vitamins, including niacin. A deficiency in the pituitary causes underdeveloped sex organs, early menopause in women and impotence in men, three various but equally alarming outcomes. Niacin has in addition a specific importance as it cannot be stored by the body for future use, so must be frequently replenished through regular consumption of, amongst other things, pasta alla puttanesca.
This dish has its origins in the bordellos and bawdy houses of Naples. It is a spunky tomato-based sauce flavoured with anchovies, chilli and garlic, then mixed through with chopped capers, black olives and basil. The anchovies are not solely responsible for this sauce’s X-rated reputation; garlic, chilli and basil are all aphrodisiacs in their own right. There are various explanations as to the dish’s naughty name; its hot spicy flavour and pungent smell is certainly redolent of exotic ladies of the night and their not-so-fresh fragrance. Some say that whereas your average Italian mamma would shop daily for fresh produce, your average Neapolitan whore was kept hard at it, and so had to rely on long-life store-cupboard staples for her daily meals. People who believe this are perhaps a little dull. I prefer to believe that the dish brings out one’s inner harlot, the one lurking secretly in every starched white shirt and prim and proper bodice.
Pasta alla Puttanesca
Ripe plum tomatoes : 400 g (or one can of tinned tomatoes)
Fresh red chilli (mild) : 1
Garlic : 3 fat cloves
Sea salt : to taste
Extra virgin olive oil : 100 ml
Salted anchovy fillets : 6
Capers : 2 tbsp
Black olives : 12
Basil : a small bunch
Dried penne pasta : 250 g
Roughly chop the tomatoes, finely slice the red chilli and mash the garlic clove into a paste with a little sea salt.
Heat the olive oil and add the garlic, chilli and anchovies. Fry for 2 minutes, then add the chopped tomatoes. Bring the sauce gently to the boil.
Meanwhile rinse the capers and roughly chop with the pitted black olives.
Once the sauce is simmering add the chopped capers and olives and let the sauce gently reduce for 20 minutes.
Chiffonade the basil: place the leaves on top of each other and roll up into a basil cigar, then finely slice to leave fine ribbons of bruise-free basil.
Boil the pasta (traditionally spaghetti, but for me the sauce clings better to penne) with a little oil in plenty of salted water, for the prescribed time. Then drain.
Add the pasta to the tomato sauce. Stir to combine – then serve sprinkled with the ribbons of fresh basil.
CAVIAR
Ethically dubious, cripplingly pricey and irresistibly alluring, caviar is the black ace in the aphrodisiac pack. The very word caviar hints at extraordinary properties, derived from the Persian word kawyar or cake of strength. History is littered with tsars, shahs, kings and emperors who have slurped from this fishy font. The roll call includes such lecherous luminaries as Casanova and Rasputin who would prime themselves for nights of passion with gobs of this esoteric delicacy. Frank Sinatra liked to keep the party going into the morning. He would prep Ava Gardner for a louche lie-in with the most decadent of breakfasts: caviar and scrambled eggs.
Caviar is the salted unfertilised eggs of the stately sturgeon. Prehistoric in origin, the most prized Beluga sturgeon can grow to a massive 5 metres in length and a groaning 2 tonnes in weight. Although sturgeon feed in the nutrient-rich waters near river deltas and estuaries, they head into fresh water to spawn. Fishermen lie in wait to ambush the females. A hefty whack to the fishy forehead stuns the mum-to-be whilst the flick of a rusty blade cuts out the ovaries in the crudest of oophorectomies. The black bounty of briny eggs can weigh up to 10 per cent of the fish’s total body weight. The eggs are washed, sieved, lightly salted and finally packed into those tiny lithographed tins, which are so bewilderingly expensive.
Until recently, tucking into a can of caviar came with an uncomfortable burp of ethical indigestion. The unfortunate sturgeon seldom survives the brutish egg extraction. To make matters worse, sturgeon spawn only every five years, and only when they reach twenty years old. The most expensive caviar comes from the largest and most ancient fish. Unsurprisingly, unscrupulous over-fishing has pushed stocks of wild Caspian sturgeon to the point of extinction. Fortunately, international fish farming has saved us all from caviar catastrophy. Caviar is now humanely harvested from a variety of sturgeon strains comparable in quality to the wild Beluga, Ossetra and Sevruga of the Caspian Sea. Farming has also brought the price of caviar down. The most prized white Almas Beluga is packed in a 24-carat gold tin and can cost an oligarchic $25,000 per kilogram. By comparison Prunier’s French farmed caviar is almost egalitarian, costing ‘just’ $1,700 per kilogram.
As any hedge fund manager will attest, wealth is an aphrodisiac. As one of the most expensive delicacies available, it is no surprise that caviar has quite the reputation too. The allure of the stinking rich is amplified by a wonderful set of rituals to enhance and announce one’s conspicuous consumption. Serve in a cut crystal bowl placed on a bed of ice with a softly gleaming mother-of-pearl spoon jutting from your black hoard. Connoisseurs, such as myself, insist that caviar should be eaten off human skin. Make a loose fist, place a small spoonful of caviar on the soft skin between your forefinger and thumb, and revel in the seamy suggestiveness as your inamorata slurps it up. Once in the gob, caviar’s true charms are revealed. Caviar may be expensive but then again it is undeniably delicious, offering a uniquely sensuous eating experience. The sensation is silky smooth and unctuous with a delicate savoury marine flavour. Pop the tiny eggs with your tongue and you are rewarded with bursts of creamy nutty nuance.
The sensuality of caviar and its high status are aided and abetted in the aphrodisiac stakes by an incredible array of nutritional goodies. It is a good source of calcium and phosphorus, as well as protein, selenium, iron, magnesium, and vitamins B12, B6, B2, B44, C, A and D. All excellent but it is the payload of amino acids arginine and histidine that provide the bang for your buck. Arginine acts in a very similar way to Viagra, speeding the rush of lewd blood into rude regions – stiffening male resolve and intensifying ecstatic exclamations. Histidine is required for triggering and lengthening orgasms in both me
n and women, and is directly responsible for the sexual flush that spreads across chests in exquisite moments of extremis.
When it comes to serving caviar it is best to focus one’s culinary creativity on the supporting cast rather than the star turn. It is hard to improve upon perfection. The traditional accompaniment is blinis – small Russian buckwheat pancakes. Never afraid to fly in the face of received opinion, I prefer to partner my caviar with perfectly petite potato pancakes. Serve your pancakes with sour cream, and alternate morsels of the black stuff with nibbles of this tasty counterpoint and sips of bone-dry champagne.
Potato Blinis
Floury potatoes : 150 g
Onion : 1 small sweet bulb
Butter : a good knob
Milk : 75 ml
Egg (large) : 1
Self-raising flour : 40 g
Salt : ½ tsp
Sugar : ½ tsp
Vegetable oil : 1 tbsp
Peel the potatoes and cook in salted, simmering water until soft. Drain and mash until very smooth.
Meanwhile slice the onion very finely, and gently sweat it in a pan with a little butter until cooked through.
Whisk the mashed potato with the milk, onion and the yolk of the egg. Once these are combined add the flour, salt and sugar and whisk together.
Whisk the egg white until it is stiff. Fold half the egg white into the batter using a metal spoon, then carefully fold in the remainder, trying to keep the batter as fluffy as possible.
Heat a little oil in a frying pan and place small spoonfuls of batter into the pan. Cook the pancakes over a medium heat for about 3 minutes on each side until golden brown. The ideal pancake should be about 4 cm in diameter and about ½ cm thick.
THE SONG OF THE VIRGIN STURGEON – ANON
Caviar comes from the virgin sturgeon
A virgin sturgeon is a very fine fish
Virgin sturgeon needs no urgin’
That’s why caviar is my dish.
I fed caviar to Louisa
She’s my honey tried and true
Now Louisa needs no urgin’
I recommend caviar to you.
I fed caviar to my grandpa
He was a man of ninety-three;
Screams and cries were heard from grandma,
Grandpa had her up a tree.
I fed caviar to my sweetheart,
She always did it cheerfully.
Now she does it with a vengeance,
Oh, my God, it’s killing me.
I put caviar in the punchbowl,
That livened up the party, sure.
What am I doing stripped down naked?
Thought these girls were sweet and pure.
LOBSTER
Aphrodisiacs are named after Aphrodite, the splendidly sexual Greek goddess of love. She was born of the sea, appearing from the deep fully formed and gloriously naked on a splayed scallop shell. Since antiquity, all shellfish has been associated with Aphrodite, rightly regarded as food for love. Lobster is the daddy of the shellfish family and has a suitably heavyweight aphrodisiac reputation. It is the most luxurious and expensive crustacean, a lavish indulgence to melt the heart with a spot of spoiling. Add a romantic red shell, an indecently suggestive aroma, and a viscerally sensual, hands-on eating experience – lobster is hot to trot. It is the Scarlett O’Hara of fruits de mer. Last but by no means least, lobster also tastes absolutely delicious.
Although lobsters are found all over the world, it is the cold seas of the North Atlantic that house the most delicious, big-clawed varieties. The European or common lobster is found mainly on the rocky coastline of France, Britain and Norway. The larger northern lobster flourishes most famously in Maine on the eastern seaboard of the USA. These kings of the sea have blue blood and can live almost indefinitely. Perhaps hinting at their aphrodisiac potential, as lobsters get older they become increasingly fertile. The largest lobster ever caught was a 20-kg monster. At his age he must have been quite the old goat.
Lobsters may be randy but they are also surprisingly romantic. It is the female lobster who picks her beau. The male ushers her into his rocky hole, where she then performs a protracted striptease, taking up to an hour to slip out of her shell. Once she is naked the magic happens. Rather touchingly, the gallant gentleman lobster will then guard his lover for a few days while her new shell hardens. Possibly flush with love, the sweetest-tasting lobsters are females who have just shed their shell. Hard-shell lobsters, although the easiest to transport and the most commonly eaten, are also the toughest. Lobsters grow by shedding their shell. Their flesh becomes denser and denser until, too tight, the lobster is forced out of its shell. Once naked, the lobster softens and expands by absorbing water. A new soft shell forms, hardening gradually over the following year.
The lobster is conspicuously absent from gastronomic history, largely because until the invention of the lobster pot in 1808 they were damn hard to catch. The only other method is diving, and it seems not many people fancied a lung-busting plunge in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. In Europe, they were a luxury reserved for royalty and aristocrats. In America, they didn’t really know what to do with the bounty from their newly invented lobster pots. Lobster was food for fish hooks and fertiliser, not fine living. Servants in Maine would insist in their employment contracts that they were not to be fed lobster more than twice a week. The late-nineteenth-century fad for seaside summer vacations, and fancy folk from Boston and New York, are what put lobster on America’s gastronomic map. These cosmopolitans propagated the reputation of Maine lobster. Soon surf ’n’ turf and lobster Thermidor were feeding the finest in the land. Rapacious over-fishing was all it took for the once-plentiful lobster to ascend to its current position as one of the world’s most luxurious foods.
Like scallops, crab and langoustine, lobsters boast all the goodness of the sea. They are stocked with a particularly nutritious larder of libido-enhancing minerals, vitamins and amino acids. Zinc is essential to sexual satisfaction and lobsters have got loads of it (see oysters for more detail). Selenium is also a bonus. This mineral is vital to male fertility. Concentrated in the testicles it breeds the strongest of little spermy swimmers. The rich array of B vitamins is equally beneficial to healthy production of the various sex hormones. Lobster has a full set of amino acids, including a boatload of arginine. Used as a chemical treatment for impotence, arginine stimulates the production of nitric oxide, transforming limp lengths of useless gristle into towering beacons of masterful masculinity. Left-out lady readers will be pleased to hear that arginine’s effects are very much equal opportunity.
A lobster dinner should be a spectacle. Wrestling your dinner, winkling out titbits and licking your fingers are all part of the fun. Lobster is typically boiled or grilled. I find the drama, flavour and frivolity are all enhanced by roasting your lobster in a carefully constructed carapace of greaseproof paper, filled with herbs, spices, vegetables and a splash of white wine. Bring the lobster to the table in its bag, cutting into the paper to release a sensuous sauna of lobster-scented steam. Alternatively, allow the lobster to cool in its bag, perform the necessary culinary surgery and serve formally on a platter with roast garlic mayonnaise, a green salad and warm potato salad.
No morsel of a delicacy like lobster should go to waste. Use the shell, tomalley (the soft, green flesh in the body cavity) and roasting detritus to create a luxurious lobster bisque fortified with a splash of cognac. Perfect from a Thermos for a romantic spring picnic on a blustery day by the sea. It is as Aphrodite would have wanted.
Lobster in a Bag
If you are cooking lobster yourself you need to buy it alive and perform the last rites in-house. The most humane way to snuff out the crustacean’s flickering flame is to slowly freeze it to death. Wrap the lobster in a plastic bag and place in the deep freeze for 2 hours. Plunge the icy lobster’s head into rapidly boiling water for 60 seconds to make sure of the execution.
Lobster : 1 large lobster (or two small 500g lobsters)<
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Garlic : 2 cloves
Carrots : 2
Celery : 2 sticks
Fennel : 1 head
Onion : 1 medium onion
Thyme : 1 sprig
Parsley : 1 small bunch
Bay leaf : 1
Cloves : 2
Star anise : 1
Cayenne pepper : a pinch
Butter : 50 g
Dry white wine : a large glass
Salt and pepper : to taste
Greaseproof paper
Preheat the oven to 230° C.
Crush the garlic and finely slice the carrots, celery, fennel and onion. Mix with the herbs and spices and place on two sheets of greaseproof paper.
Melt the butter, and use to brush the recently deceased lobster. Place the lobster on the bed of vegetables, season and pour the white wine around it. Wrap the greaseproof paper around the lobster and vegetables to create a loose but firmly secured airtight parcel – if necessary fasten with string.
Bake the lobster in the preheated oven for 45 minutes – if you are cooking two smaller lobsters 30 to 35 minutes should be sufficient. The roasted vegetables can be reserved for the Lobster Bisque recipe (see here).
Prepare the cooked lobster (at the table if you are serving it hot) by splitting it lengthways with a knife. Remove the digestive tract that runs down the length of the tail, crack the claws and get stuck in. It is generally advisable to give the head and body cavity a miss. The greenish tomalley, which is the liver and pancreas, is often held up to be the most aphrodisiac part of the lobster but it is also a bit grisly-looking and intense for some.
Classic Lobster Bisque
Lobster carcass : 1
Butter : 25 g
Brandy : 4 tbsp
Risotto rice : 50 g
Cooked vegetables : see recipe for Lobster in a Bag