Thursday, 11/02/2010

Cine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus is the Latin maxim that loosely translates as “love grows cold without food and wine.” Eros and appetite, libido and hunger, food and love are linked together like a man and woman in an amorous embrace. Even the act of eating has romantic connotations, and certain foods evoke sensations that are similar to lovemaking: they make our skin turn flush and cause blood to stream through the veins.

A single glass of wine can leave you with a lingering feeling of warmth, happiness and inhibition. Certain foods are widely considered to be associated with love, female fertility and male prowess, because the food in question might have a mythological association with love. Food is considered aphrodisiacal because of the emotional feelings it evokes.

That may be because the food was served at a particularly romantic restaurant with the appropriate music and light. Or, it may just be because you really like the taste of the food in question. A few years back, a group of researchers in Chicago determined that the smell of pizza triggers sexual impulses.

The fragrant aromas of melted mozzarella, steaming tomato and sweet basil stimulated blood flow to the essential organs, they determined. Finally the potentially aphrodisiacal food may actually contain trace amounts of chemicals and hormones that are produced by our brain when we fall in love or feel happy and that is true for both chocolate and chili.