Casanova preferred oysters, Cleopatra raw honey. And we’ve all heard about the libido-enhancing properties of asparagus, strawberries, and artichokes. But salmon?
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Reynolds–who spent 25 years as a chef, instructor, and finally vice president at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York–is the closest thing Chicago has to an expert in the field of culinary aphrodisiacs. In honor of Valentine’s Day he’ll wield that expertise next week with a slide show, lecture, and tasting on the subject, organized by the Culinary Historians of Chicago. “It’s not like I intended to be an expert,” he says. “It’s just that at every restaurant or school I cooked at, people always wanted a romantic Valentine’s Day menu.”
A food doesn’t have to have a sexual function, though, to be an aphrodisiac. One theory holds that it just has to look sexual–phallic foodstuffs bring strength by analogy. The rhinoceros horn is a perfect example; a traditional East Asian aphrodisiac due to its resemblance to a human penis, it’s ground to a powder and mixed into a paste for consumption (an image that should send chills up any man’s spine). Other cultures revere deer antlers (shaved thin), sea cucumbers, and asparagus.
At Saussy, Mara Brie Deckter will take a slightly different approach, offering dishes from romantic places: Arabian cinnamon carrot soup with currants, Caribbean lobster with vanilla sauce and basmati rice, and torta caprese, a chocolate almond cake from Capri, Italy. Chef Paul Kahan of Blackbird decided to skip the aphrodisiac idea altogether, instead designing a five-course menu meant to be shared. “It’s the way my wife and I like to eat, so I thought I’d share it,” says Kahan.
