Upon Readin’ th’best-seller, ‘Guacamole Sunrise’, While Tryin’ t’Keep A.J. From Demandin’ Sex For th’Sixth Time Tonight Long Enough t’Finish Writin’ th’Latest Chapter in My Continued Adventures Before We Go See ‘V for Vendetta’

No, that not be th’real title. However, this is…

Cap’n Dyke and Th’Frog Combine Psychic Forces t’Bring Ye, Direct from th’Past…

[Note: Clitatia Vaginus was a contemporary of Sappho, the first ‘lesbian’ noted in the historical record. While we don’t know Clitatia’s sexual orientation, we do know she knew about what to eat to prime the heat.]

‘The ancient Greeks and Romans were a randy little lot. Wanting to swell their armies—as well as their libidos, they searched the world far and wide for foods that would enhance sexual performance and pleasure.

According to these past powerhouses of history, one of the most powerful sexual potions was ‘made from the pith taken from the branch of the pomegranate which was then ground together with the testicles of bulls and rams.’ Pliny the Elder remarked, however, that as much as this mixture might have been popular “it was good neither for the heart or the kidneys”. Well, Clitatia is here to tell you that Pliny the E. is right!

The Roman poet Marcus Valerius Martialis favored more ordinary foods as aphrodisiacs. He suggested that sexual appetite could be stimulated in old men if they dined on spring onions and shallots. For “young men suffering from impotency and not-so-young women suffering from lack of desire”, he said that pepper, cabbage, asparagus, eggs, pineapples and snails (eaten uncooked and without sauce) would be effective stimulators.

Between the forth and first centuries B.C.E. many medical doctors, including Galen and Hippocrates, agreed that chomping garlic would contribute to one’s sexual potency and, at the same time it kept vampires away, so it had did double-duty as a desirable plant.

Get yourself a recipe for mussels cooked with onions, garlic and saffron cooked in a buttery, white wine sauce and this former vestal virgin promises that if it doesn’t kill you, it will stoke those fires hotter than Rome when it was burnt by the Huns. Your guide, Clitatia Vaginus, found out that butter and garlic can cause your sweat — and other secretions — extra slick.

Lettuce was considered a boost for sexual potency by the Greeks, the Romans and the Egyptians (a sexual romping trifecta if I’ve ever seen one).

Other foods to fuel your fire include: Aniseed, artichokes, skink flesh (it’s a lizard, small, unpalatable), carrots, rabbits, sweet peas, parsnips and—that all time favorites of favorites—sparrow’s brains. There was some squabbling about what member of the animal kingdom was the sexiest. Romans found the rabbit to be particularly lustful, while the Greeks felt sparrows were the real ‘beasts’ in the pursuit of sexual pleasure. Skinks (those little lizards) are slim and long…well, you take the connotation from there, darlings. Ergo, you ate them to transfer their power to yourself.

As a tribute to our illustrious host, the proprietor of ‘Balls and Walnuts’, our Dear Douglas, let’s discuss walnuts. Walnuts have been cultivated for at least 2,000 years and they have been linked to love and fertility throughout history. According to an ancient myth, Jupiter, the king of the gods who was also known as Jove, lived on walnuts when he lived on earth. Therefore Romans called walnuts Jovis glans, meaning “the glans of Jupiter.” (Glans is the rounded tip of the penis or the erectile tissue of the clitoris.) Romans also called the walnut nux Gallica, meaning “the French nut.” Juglans regia, the botanical name of the Persian walnut (also called the English walnut), translates as the “regal nut of Jupiter.”

A recipe for your pleasure (hopefully):

Roasted Beet, Goat Feta and Walnut Salad on Radicchio Leaves

3 medium-size beets
1/3 cup goat feta, diced into small pieces
1/2 cup walnut pieces, dry-roasted in a cast iron pan
2 tsps walnut oil
1 tsp (5 ml) balsamic vinegar
1 tsp (5 ml) orange juice
2 tsps (10 ml) oregano, tarragon or other fresh herbs, finely chopped
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Radicchio leaves (or Belgian endive leaves), washed and dried.

Preheat the oven to 425 degree F. Place a baking sheet or a sheet of aluminum foil on the lower oven rack to catch beet drippings. Place whole beets on the upper oven rack and bake for 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Remove from oven and allow them to cool. Peel off the beet skins and discard. Dice the beets into small pieces and place in a bowl. Add the walnuts and goat feta. Combine the walnut oil, vinegar, orange juice, chopped herbs and black pepper. Pour over the salad mixture and toss to combine. Spoon a tablespoon of the mixture onto each radicchio or endive leaf and arrange decoratively on a large platter and enjoy your hot n’ steamy evening.

Note that the Roman physician Galen wrote that foods worked as aphrodisiacs if they were “warm and moist”. However, remember, my lusty students, that the Roman poet Ovid wrote in The Art of Love, after giving a litany of aphrodisiacs, “Prescribe no more my muse, nor medicines give / Beauty and youth need no provocative.”

Alas and alack! What a nothing is man! We all shall be bones at the end of life’s span, so let us be jolly for as long as we can.–Gaius Pompeius Trimalchio

Well, you want to know what Clitacia Vaginus thinks about fusty Ovid? Pah! Hera’s handmaidens, bring on the skink flesh and the sparrow’s brains with a side order of buttered saffron and garlic flavoured mussels and DON’T FORGET THE WALNUTS FOR DESSERT!’

— Cap’n Dyke, Resident Pirate Queen