Valentine's Day is coming. What's the colour of Valentine's Day?
Of course, it is red — just like a tomato. You know at one time
tomatoes were called love apples. Indeed, in French, they
still say 'pommes d'amour.' Sounds better in French, right? Well, where does
this idea come from? From an ancient notion that any
substance that resembled the body or a part of the body would
have an effect on that part. On Valentine's Day, of
course, we talk about love and we talk about aphrodisiacs, named
after Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and passion.
And the belief was that tomatoes resembled the human
heart. I guess if you stretch your imagination a little bit
they do and that's why they were thought to have an effect
on the heart. Over the years, numerous substances were
put into the category of being aphrodisiac, that is specific
stimulants of the sex drive. Why? Because of the resemblance to
parts of the human body. For example, the orchid. The roots
of the orchid look like the male testes, and that's why
orchids have been prized as a gift of lovers. Well talking
about that particular part of the anatomy, believe it or not
the Aztecs use the same word for avocado as they did for the
human testes and obviously because of the resemblance
they had this aphrodisiac quality. Mostly foods that
resemble parts of the body were put into this category of
aphrodisiac and you can imagine why the asparagus fell into
that category as well. Although to be honest, I think
the uncooked asparagus would do a better job. Many, many other
substances were reputed to be aphrodisiacs. The horn of the
rhinoceros. Well, the horn of rhinos obviously has a phallic shape,
but it is only made of keratin, the same stuff that our hair and
our nails are made of so the chance of having some sort of
aphrodisiac effect from chewing on the horn of a rhinoceros is
the same as the effect of chewing on your nails,
essentially no effect whatsoever. The roots of the
ginseng plant resemble the human body so therefore were
supposed to have an aphrodisiac effect. Of course all of this
is really in the mind. If you think something has a stimulant
effect, it just may. However, on Valentine's Day, obviously, we
do have to talk about chocolates because those are
the classic gift of lovers and there's a story here as well.
The story is that chocolates contain a compound
called phenylethylamine, which is supposed to boost your amorous thoughts.
Well, it sounds very good. Unfortunately, there isn't any
real science to it. Phenylethylamine doesn't really have that
effect and in any case it is found in many many other foods
other than just chocolate. For example, sauerkraut is rich in
phenylethylamine. But let's face it, showing up on your lover's
doorstep with a jar of sauerkraut is not nearly as
seductive and showing up with some chocolate. Of course, as I said red
is really the colour of Valentine's Day. Why because
blood is red ,heart is red etcetera. So if you don't want
to give your lover a gift of chocolates or of sauerkraut,
you might want to just give them a nice rose.
Happy Valentine's Day!