Written in: 1997

The following summary has been excerpted from the book jacket:

In Aphrodite, the internationally acclaimed writer Isabel Allende brings her magical storytelling powers to a highly personal and charmingly idiosyncratic look at the intertwined sensual arts of food and love. Blending personal reminiscence with folklore from around the world, historical legends, and memorable moments from literature - erotic and otherwise - Allende spices her narrative with equal portions of humor and insight.

Assembling a feast of fascinating facts about the aphrodisiac powers of food and drink, Allende serves them up with both convincing admiration and due irreverence. She offers suggestions, both ancient and modern, for luring a lover, kindling sexual ardor, prolonging the act of love, and reviving flagging virility. Dipping into the cauldron of history, she reports on the lascivious appetites of everyone from the emperor Nero to Catherine the Great to France's notorious Madame du Barry.

A personal ode to the pleasures of food and sex, Aphrodite celebrates the sensual life with joy and imagination. Allende's exuberance, storytelling powers, and naughty sense of fun make this memoir an irresistible treat for the senses.

OPINION AND PASSAGES:

Napoleon ate truffles before meeting Josephine in their amorous battles in the imperial bedchamber, in which it is no exaggeration to say, he always wound up defeated. Scientists - however do they come up with these experiments, I wonder? - have discovered that the scent of the truffle activates a gland in the pig that produces the same pheromones present in humans when they are smitten by love. It is a sweaty, garlic-tinged odor that reminds me of the New York subway.

Some years ago, I invited to dinner - with intentions of seduction, naturally - an evasive beau whose reputation as a good cook forced me to outdo myself with the menu. I decided that a truffle omelet sprinkled with a dusting of red caviar at serving time (they gray was beyond my possibilities) constituted an obvious erotic overture, something akin to giving him red roses and the Kama-sutra. I searched high and low for truffles, and when finally I located some, my modest salary in a land not my own would not stretch far enough to buy them. The clerk in the delicatessen, an Italian as much an immigrant as I, counseled me to forget the truffles.

"Why don't you use mushrooms instead?" he asked as I disconsolately gazed at those little bits black as rabbit droppings, which to my eyes shone like diamonds.

"It isn't the same. Truffles are aphrodisiacs."
"They're what?"
"Sensual," I said, to avoid going into detail.

I must have blushed, because the man came out from behind the showcase and approached me with a strange smile. He imagined, I suppose, that I was a nymphomaniac hoping to rub my erogenous zones with his truffles.

"Romantic," I murmured, blushing redder and redder.
"Ah! For a man? Your sweetheart"? Your husband?"
"Well, yes..."

At that instant his smile lost its sarcastic twist and turned complicitous: He stepped behind the counter and produced a small bottle, like a perfume vial.

"Olio d'oliva aromatizado al tartufo bianco,"...








Nog geen opmerkingen of toevoegingen op dit document geplaatst.
Wil jij een bericht plaatsen dan kan dat door op "post message" te klikken.