Cupid’s Foods

Through the centuries, certain foods have been linked to love. Kissing a passion fruit was once believed to ensure a romantic dream would come true. An ancient recipe for ensuring sexual prowess called for placing a May apple, two acorns, and a jasmine flower under your bed. Here’s more lore on foods with a reputation for spurring romance.

* Chocolate. The Aztec ruler Montezuma II was reputed to consume 50 cups of chocolate per day to aid his love life. Chocolate bonbons continue to be a prized Valentine’s Day gift. Chocolate may not really produce that falling-in-love sensation, but this sensuous food can’t be left out of any romantic celebration.
* Hazelnuts. Valentine’s Day has been observed in England since the 1400s. It was long believed in that country that one way to identify your true love was to write the names of romantic prospects on hazelnuts, roast them, and see which one popped up first.
* Honey. The word honeymoon, which refers to a period of harmony following a marriage, may have originated from the tradition of having newlyweds drink a honey-sweetened beverage. Hindu brides offer honey to their new husbands, and English-speaking sweethearts everywhere call each other “honey.”
* Tomatoes. After journeying from the New World to the Old, tomatoes, or love apples, were given the Latin name pomum amoris, leading some people to conclude that tomatoes were an aphrodisiac. Although that’s doubtful, one Renaissance commentator rightly described tomatoes as “luscious red orbs beautiful enough to command love.”
* Oysters. Casanova, the famous 18th-century lover, surmised that oysters stimulate the libido, and in Consider the Oyster, M.F.K. Fisher mused on the mysterious powers of the bivalve mollusk, calling it “a lusty bit of nourishment.”