Aphrodisiac Quotes

“There is no aphrodisiac like innocence”
― Jean Baudrillard

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”
― Chelsea G. Summers, A Certain Hunger

“Indifference is the greatest aphrodisiac.”
― Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the Dance

“Power is only an aphrodisiac for the living dead”
― Dean Cavanagh

“I am an aphrodisiac.”
― Santosh Kalwar, An Aphrodisiac

“Unapologetically expressing your creativity is the best aphrodisiac.”
― Euphoria Godsent

“He loved the curves on her body, her soft skin and pouty lower lip, her deep soulful eyes. He adored her voice; sometimes sultry, sometimes fiery. Her laugh, her playfulness... he adored it all. But what really turned him on were the curves in her mind, the twists and turns, the fire, the brilliance - and her compassionate heart; the beat of it harmonizing so sweetly and perfectly with the beat of his. The whole package was beyond thrilling... yet her mind, her heart, those were the immortal aphrodisiacs.”
― Melody Lee, Moon Gypsy

“Somewhere along the way, I discovered that in the physical act of cooking, especially something complex or plain old hard to handle, dwelled unsuspected reservoirs of arousal both gastronomic and sexual. If you are not one of us, the culinarily depraved, there is no way to explain what's so darkly enticing about eviscerating beef marrowbones, chopping up lobster, baking a three-layer pecan cake, and doing it for someone else, offering someone hard-won gustatory delights in order to win pleasures of another sort. Everyone knows there are foods that are sexy to eat. What they don't talk about so much is foods that are sexy to make. But I'll take a wrestling bout with recalcitrant brioche dough over being fed a perfect strawberry any day, foreplay-wise.”
― Julie Powell, Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously

“Picking up my spoon, I dip it into the broth, making sure to get pieces of the small, fatty meat. I close my eyes and eat my spoonful, marveling at the rich, savory flavors. It's like beef broth, only heartier, and the meat has this really interesting texture. Before I know it, I've devoured half the bowl.
"You like Soup Number Five?"
I look up to see Lola Simeona, the old woman from earlier, standing by my table, watching me. "Oh, yes," I say, patting my mouth with a napkin. "It's delicious! What is this meat? It's like nothing I've ever tasted. And I feel more... energetic already, sort of like I can take on anything." Like Prem.
She smiles knowingly. "Yes, yes, Soup Number Five is magical." After a pause, during which her smile morphs into what I can only be described as a mischievous grin, she says, "The meat is bull testes."
I stare at her for a long moment as her words filter into my brain. I set my spoon down carefully and take a sip of water. "Bull... testes?" I ask in the most neutral way I can.
"Yes! It's an aphrodisiac!" She pats my shoulder and walks off to another table. I think I can hear her cackling.
I look down into my bowl. I just ate a bunch of chopped-up bull balls. For a moment I wonder, in a very detached way (is this what being in medical shock feels like?), if I'm going to throw up. But then the moment passes, and I realize they're really delicious. And Soup No. 5 works. I can feel the potent mixture wending its way through my system, infusing my blood with confidence and desire. I eat another big spoonful.”
― Sandhya Menon, Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love

“Speed is an aphrodisiac!”
― Avijeet Das

“She removes the pint of apricots, plump and exquisite as roses, and offers him one. He takes a bite and puts his hand over hers as she takes a bite, the velvety peel and fruit sugar filling her whole mouth. The air between them is complicated, infused with the scents from the bags: toasted sesame, sweet orange blossom water, and fragrant rosewater.”
― Diana Abu-Jaber, Crescent

“Shawn reaches across the counter with the spoon, and I taste the creamy potatoes, rich and delicious, with just the perfect amount of tartness from the sour cream. I roll my eyes in ecstasy.”
― Stacey Ballis, How to Change a Life

“Wait until the truffles hit the dining room---absolute sex," said Scott.
When the truffles arrived the paintings leaned off the walls toward them. They were the grand trumpets of winter, heralding excess against the poverty of the landscape. The black ones came first and the cooks packed them up in plastic quart containers with Arborio rice to keep them dry. They promised to make us risotto with the infused rice once the truffles were gone.
The white ones came later, looking like galactic fungus. They immediately went into the safe in Chef's office.
"In a safe? Really?"
"The trouble we take is in direct proportion to the trouble they take. They are impossible," Simone said under her breath while Chef went over the specials.
"They can't be that impossible if they are on restaurant menus all over town." I caught her eye. "I'm kidding."
"You can't cultivate them. The farmers used to take female pigs out into the countryside, lead them to the oaks, and pray. They don't use pigs anymore, they use well-behaved dogs. But they still walk and hope."
"What happened to the female pigs?"
Simone smiled. "The scent smells like testosterone to them. It drives them wild. They destroyed the land and the truffles because they would get so frenzied."
I waited at the service bar for drinks and Sasha came up beside me with a small wooden box. He opened it and there sat the blanched, malignant-looking tuber and a small razor designed specifically for it. The scent infiltrated every corner of the room, heady as opium smoke, drowsing us. Nicky picked up the truffle in his bare hand and delivered it to bar 11. He shaved it from high above the guest's plate.
Freshly tilled earth, fields of manure, the forest floor after a rain. I smelled berries, upheaval, mold, sheets sweated through a thousand times. Absolute sex.”
― Stephanie Danler, Sweetbitter

“Seafood, of course, has aphrodisiac qualities. Mollusks, too---like lanarche ajo e ojo, snails in oil and garlic. Perhaps some carciofioni, baby artichokes cooked with mint, pulled apart with the fingers and dipped in soft, melted butter. Wine, obviously. And then, to finish, a burst of sugar, something light but artificial, so that you feel full of energy and happiness---but that's only one side of the story. If you want someone to fall in love with you, you would cook for them something very different, something perfectly simple but intense. Something that shows you understand their soul."
"Such as?"
"Well, that's the difficulty. It will vary from individual to individual. You'd have to really know the person concerned---their history, their background, whether they are raw or refined, dry or oily. You would have to have tasted them, to know whether their own flesh is sweet or savory, salty or bland. In short, you would have to love them, and even then you might not truly know them well enough to cook a dish that would capture their heart.”
― Anthony Capella, The Food of Love

“The dessert was tartufo, a dark chocolate gelato dusted with cocoa.
Eighty-five percent of the world's chocolate is made from the common or garden-variety Forastero cocoa bean. About 10 percent is made from the finer, more subtle Trinitario bean. And less than 5 percent is made from the rare, aromatic Criollo bean, which is found only in the remotest regions of Colombia and Venezuela. These beans are so sought after that, pound for pound, they can command prices many times higher than the other local crop, cocaine. Having been fermented, shipped, lightly roasted and finally milled to a thickness of about fifteen microns, the beans are finally cooked into tablets, even a tiny crumb of which, placed on the tongue, explodes with flavor as it melts.
A tartufo is a chocolate gelato shaped to look like a truffle, but it is an appropriate name for other reasons, too. Made from egg yolk, sugar, a little milk, and plenty of the finest Criollo chocolate, with a buried kick of chile, Bruno's tartufo was as richly sensual and overpowering as the fungus from which it took its name---and even more aphrodisiac.”
― Anthony Capella, The Food of Love

“What sort of pasta are you making?"
"Pasta con funghi."
He watched as she took a bowl of strange, round, reddish brown mushrooms out of the larder. The air immediately filled with their rich, earthy scent. Ripe as a well-cellared cheese, but tinged with the odors of leaf mold and decay, it reminded him a little of the smell of offal in his native Roman dishes. "How many kinds of funghi do you cook with?" he asked.
"Oh, hundreds. It just depends on what I find in the woods."
"You pick these yourself?"
"Of course."
As the smell of funghi combined with the scent of hot butter and garlic in the frying pan, Bruno felt his nostrils flare. And not just his nostrils. The smell was stirring up his blood, awakening sensation in a part of him that had been quiescent for a long time.”
― Anthony Capella, The Food of Love

“These truffles were a different thing altogether from the summer truffle he and Benedetta had found earlier in the year. Pale in color and as large as potatoes, they were both awesomely pungent and deeply intoxicating. Gusta and Benedetta threw them into every dish as casually as if they were throwing in parsley, and after a while Bruno did the same. He would never forget the first time they cooked a wild boar with celery and truffles: the dark, almost rank meat and the sulfuric reek of the tuber combined to form a taste that made him shiver.
He was aware that Benedetta was deliberately cooking dishes designed to bind him to her. As well as the truffles, there was robiola del bec, a cheese made from the milk of a pregnant ewe, rich in pheromones. There were fiery little diavolilli, strong chile peppers that had been left to dry in the sun. Plates of fried funghi included morsels of Amanita, the ambrosia of the gods, said to be a natural narcotic. He didn't mind. He was doing the same to her: offering her unusual gelati flavored with saffron, the delicate pollen of the crocus flower; elaborate tarts of myrtle and chocolate; salads made with lichens and even acorns from her beloved woods. It was a game they played, based on their intimate appreciation of the taste of each other's bodies, so that the food and the sex became one harmonious whole, and it became impossible to say where eating ended and lovemaking began.”
― Anthony Capella, The Food of Love

“Ambrosial!" Apicius said to me yet again one afternoon as we chopped beets for the evening meal.
The knife revealed dark rings with every slice. There was something precious to me about black food- sinister yet seductive. Oh, how the beet juice would look in glass goblets, the torchlight glinting off the black surface! Apicius loved beet juice, and the rumors about its powers as an aphrodisiac were always a wonderful source of conversation with his guests.”
― Crystal King, Feast of Sorrow

“Then, a pea shoot and foie gras wheel with a small butter knife. Michael Saltz and I stared at it, confounded by how it worked. It stood on its side like an ancient monument, with various crinkly and crackly things at its base.
"Just cut it," the waiter said kindly. He looked like Pascal Lite, not as exotic or statuesque, but with a bit of Pascal's twinkle and good-boy-with-a-lot-of-tattoos edge.
I slid the knife down. At first nothing happened. The foie gras clung to itself, until it peeled apart sleepily and a green, milky liquid bled out.
"Wow," I said.
"Wow," Michael Saltz said.
I took a soft forkful of foie gras and dragged it through the pea shoot sauce and the brown crumbles and white flakes. I rubbed the foie gras against the roof of my mouth, and it stuck there with a sticky stubbornness, then melted away. The taste coursed through my body, a slippery, moody, gutsy smoothness that slithered and pushed and screamed down my throat.
Oh, Pascal, I thought. If I couldn't be with him, this came close. I flashed back to three nights ago and the pleasure cascaded through me once more.”
― Jessica Tom, Food Whore

“Innocence, that mild form of mental deficiency, has the same aphrodisiac effect as softness of skin.”
― Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories V: 2000 - 2004

“Mandrake
(Atropa Mandragora)

If you're interested in a plant that looks like a person, has visible sex organs, is an aphrodisiac of the first order, contains mind-altering alkaloids such as hyoscyamine, has been known to cure depression and insomnia, then Atropa Mandragora is the plant for you. But be careful. More than one person who has pulled this plant out of the ground has died in the process.”
― Margot Berwin, Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“Mandrake is medicinal because the root contains an alkaloid that belongs to the atropine group. It's a powerful narcotic and analgesic, and, in larger doses, a superb anesthetic. It's magical because of the bizarre shape of the root, which looks like a human being, sometimes male, sometimes female. This root can and will exercise supernatural power over the human body and mind. It's both an aphrodisiac and a strong hallucinogen. Think about it. Those two things together can create the most mind-bending sex you're ever likely to have. And babies, too. In the book of Genesis, the barren Rachel eats the root and becomes pregnant with Joseph. The plant produces out-of-body experiences in some susceptible people, and a vastly increased sex drive in almost all men."
"Sounds good to me."
"A lot of people think so. Folks love to experiment with the mandrake. The problem is that it's poisonous in the wrong doses, and, too often to mention, people end up sick, or worse. They forget that the mandrake is in the family Solanaceae, similar to deadly nightshade.”
― Margot Berwin, Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“Some people don’t have real love for bananas; they only eat it because of the wonders they believe it performs.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover

“I know you don't like mangoes." A faint curl of humor danced on his lips.
"You know?" How? How did he know this?
"I've been feeding you this whole time, remember?" With his hot buttered voice, it sounded dirty, illicit.
"I remember." I sounded far too breathless.
He clearly noticed, that small private smile moved to his eyes. "You never eat the mango slices when I put them in any meals."
Understanding hit me, and I recalled that while I'd had breakfast fruit trays with mangoes, they'd stopped being included after the second time. Wide eyed, I silently gaped back at him.
Lucian's long clever fingers delicately picked up a cream puff. "Which is why I made some of these with vanilla-ginger cream."
Had I been gaping before? My mouth fell wide open. Behind me, I heard Dougal sigh, as if impressed. But I could only stare at Lucian, who looked smug but oddly shy as well.
"You did that for me?" I croaked.
His broad shoulder moved under his jacket. "That, and the combination of vanilla, ginger, and mango mirrored what Delilah and Saint had wanted in their original cake."
I could fall for this man. Fall hard. Maybe I already had, because my heart was too big, beating too fast. He gave me another small, barely there smile, his pale eyes gleaming with something soft and intent.
"Come now, honeybee," he murmured. "Try my cream."
I sputtered out a shocked laugh, and my face flamed, but as he'd commanded, I opened my mouth.
Lucian's nostrils flared. His hand shook a little as he lifted the cream puff and placed it one the edge of my lips. I opened my mouth wider, my tongue flicking out for that first sweet taste.
Rich, almost nutty caramel, the gentle crust of pastry, a burst of smooth light cream with a hint of vanilla and ginger spice. Slowly, I chewed, my eyes locked with his, my body tight, and my mouth in heaven. He stayed with me, feeding me another bite, cream getting on his thumb.
My tongue slipped over the blunt end, and he grunted. Hard.”
― Kristen Callihan, Make It Sweet

“You are a dream of ecstasy, the ultimate embodiment of true romance, the Aphrodite, and your refusal to believe this is the only reason you‘ll keep struggling to find that rapturous kind of love that your soul and body are craving.”
― Lebo Grand

“One of the herbals I brought home from the library had a fascinating chapter on herbs and their connection to desire. For Elizabethans, a bundle of rosemary helped arrange an assignation, and an apple suggested libidinous intent. I picture Adlai's reaction to a sprig of rosemary left on his counter, or a juicy Fuji. Better yet, a "Florida butterfly" orchid from the swamp, since the same herbal had an entire page on the sensual properties of the orchid. It called the flower female----"open and inviting"----the root, male----"tuberous and reaching"----and the entire plant "hot and moist in operation.”
― Virginia Hartman, The Marsh Queen

“My grandmother used to say that mint could heat up a man's blood. She told me that it was used in love potions in the olden times and soldiers weren't allowed to eat it lest they run amuck with lust. I remember her expounding on this subject over the Sunday roast and the cautionary look that she gave my grandfather as he reached for another spoonful of mint sauce.”
― Caroline Scott, Good Taste

“This time, it's some kind of dessert. Eden's always had a sweet tooth, and it shows. She moans, willingly drowning in the rich cocoa powder, icing sugar, and savoring the sourness of the raspberries baked in.
"Wow, that's good," she mumbles. She helps herself to a larger spoonful and sighs. "Mm, fuck me. More of where that came from, please."
She swears she sees the tips of his ears turn red. He shifts in his seat. Her breath hitches when her eyes flit down towards the growing tent in his pants.
Oh?”
― Katrina Kwan, Knives, Seasoning, & A Dash of Love