If oysters be the food of love, shuck on: Tom Parker Bowles searches for the ultimate ‘jiggy jiggy juice’ (Tom Parker-Bowles, November 7, 2024, Country Life)
I remember a trip to Hong Kong, a couple of decades back, where I found myself in Kowloon’s ‘Snake Alley’, a tiny backstreet known for its reptilian delights. The walls of this particular restaurant were fitted with dozens of small glass cases, each containing a cobra, all of which eyed me with beady disdain. Once I’d selected my dinner, the furious serpent was removed from its home and languidly proffered before me. After I’d nodded my (terrified) approval, its head was lopped off, the body chopped up and simmered in a soup, as the bile duct and blood were drained into a shot of baijiu, which I had to down in one. The spirit was so potent that I could taste nothing but fire. Once I’d opened my eyes and just about recovered, the owner punched me on the shoulder. ‘Your lady very lucky tonight,’ he whispered with a lascivious grin. Then he pumped his fist, just to hammer the message home. There was, I hasten to add, no effect whatsoever. Just like every other so-called ‘aphrodisiac’.
Some ingredients do, admittedly, possess nutrients that may help the wannabe lothario. At a push. We all know that the Venetian Casanova gobbled oysters by the dozen and, not only do they look fairly suggestive, all soft, seductive folds of flesh, but they also contain zinc, which can speed up testosterone production. Dark chocolate is rich in a compound called phenylalanine, which boosts mood and, they say, the libido, too. Bananas are bursting with potassium, bromelain and B vitamins, all essential for reproductive hormones, whereas pomegranates have lots of lusty antioxidants. Yet you’d have to consume all of the above in such vast quantities that you’d eat yourself into a stupor — which hardly makes for a night of unbridled passion.
Every country and culture has its own form of ‘jiggy jiggy juice’.