February 12, 2008
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Throughout its long and illustrious recorded history, chocolate and its main ingredient -- T. cacao, the Food of the Gods -- has been closely associated with the libido. The Spanish Conquistadores reported that the Aztec Emperor Montezuma quaffed 50 or more goblets of the heady chocolate drink each day, to increase his stamina.
More recently, both the Marquis de Sade and Casanova, both notorious lovers (their notoriety for very different reasons) and also notorious lovers of chocolate in life as well as in literature claimed chocolate excited the venereal appetites.
But is chocolate REALLY an aphrodisiac? Did Montezuma, Casanova, and the Marquis de Sade know something we don't? Much depends on what you mean by aphrodisiac.
If what you mean by aphrodisiac is a substance that will "make" an object of your desire want to have intimate relations with you -- RIGHT NOW! -- then it's my sad duty to inform you that chocolate is not an aphrodisiac and it won't do the trick.
At least not in the 21st century. But back in the 16th? Maybe so. There is reason to believe that the cacao being consumed 500 years ago was far more potent and had a far greater impact on brain and body chemistry, and therefor the libido, than the cacao that's grown today.
