29- Celebrate together
She read the directions and, possessed by the music of drums and harps that came with the cold breeze of the wind and came through her window, sleepy and confused, Penelope decided to follow the music. Perhaps she would distance herself from people, but the nighttime celebration of the Goddess Aphrodite was a desire that boiled in her heart.
She listened to the instructions that an old woman gave to a group of girls, dressed as priestesses in long white tunics and their hair decorated with roses.
Take a large pot, made of clay, iron or thick aluminum, and line the bottom with a layer of spinach leaves, lightly golden medium onions pricked with several cloves, a bouquet of fragrant herbs, not forgetting the rosemary and bay leaves, and a few carefully selected carrots, turnips, bell peppers, and cloves of garlic. Proceed to brown in a large pan, with method and enthusiasm, smoked pork chops, pieces of tender and skinned chicken, and high-quality sausage, which will then be arranged in ordered layers in the pot, starting with the chops and ending with the poultry. The night before, you will have soaked chickpeas, which, once the husks have been removed, are put in a mesh bag, so they do not scatter in the stew. The chickpeas contribute to the flavor and fun: if they are still hard, the Bacchantes can play with them as projectiles, and if they are soft, they are delicious and aphrodisiac. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a few drops of Tabasco or hot chili sauce and pour half a pitcher of dry white wine. Cover the pot with a clean cloth, place several volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica or a brick on top so that the steam does not escape. Bring to a boil for fifteen minutes, while your guests at the orgy are encouraged with wine and fresh oysters. (The advantage of oysters, in addition to their stimulating power, is that opening them will be a team task. It is not advisable to put them in the stew because they are much better raw). After fifteen minutes, uncover the pot and add clean, medium-sized potatoes with skin, as well as fish cut into pieces, including head and tail - tuna, conger eel, swordfish, and other succulent and firm-fleshed fish - and finish with seafood, starting with those that require longer cooking time, such as crab, shrimp, and mussels, and ending with clams and mussels, all well washed, of course, so that the broth does not fill with sand. Use as much fresh seafood as you can find, crustaceans and mollusks in their shells, but omit the lobster because it is very noticeable when it is alive, and you cannot put a dead one in the pot. Squid also contributes to the substance of the broth, as well as the juice of a large lemon and a few sprigs of cilantro, more peppercorns, and another full pitcher of white wine. Cover the pot as before, including the encyclopedia or the brick, and cook for another half an hour, this time over low heat.
When you uncover the pot, a fragrant column of steam will rise to the sky like a sacred offering, and after eating the prey, starting with the lighter ones and ending with the pork ribs, you reach the Olympic nectar accumulated at the bottom of the pot, the essence and spirit of all the ingredients, well seasoned and hot, which is drunk with caution in clay jugs, knowing beforehand that it intoxicates the soul and unleashes lust forever.
Food, like eroticism, enters through the eyes, but there are people capable of putting anything in their mouths. In Samoa, live octopus is an exquisite dish. They put it on their faces, let the tentacles wrap around their heads in an involuntary embrace, then bite off the animal's beak and suck on it in a long kiss of death until it is emptied of its contents. Unfortunate animal... The first time I saw edible snails, I thought it was a joke. It was a winter morning in the Grand Place of Brussels, more than thirty years ago, one of those gray days that seem to drag on for several weeks. In one corner, there was a man offering passersby french fries and snails in paper bags. It was necessary to see with my own eyes a mustached bourgeois extract those slimy worms from their shells with a toothpick and put them in his mouth to understand human nature. In Szechuan, in the interior of China, I had to choose my breakfast from a pond where a tangle of sea snakes writhed. The cook took out mine with a fork and five minutes later presented it in the soup. That was less traumatic than the land snake, a long creature with green scales, served on a plate surrounded by spicy peppers and potatoes, with its head raised in an attacking position. It had a very strong taste, like aged fish. First, I saw the cook shaking a live mouse by the tail over a wooden box where the reptiles were; as soon as one detached from the turmoil, he grabbed it from behind and twisted its neck. I cannot explain how he managed to make the cooked snake have its head upright and that expression of ferocity. I tried it out of courtesy and ate the peppers. In some parts of Mexico, fried ants are the favorite treat for children - sweet and spicy - and in Chile, the spider of the sea urchin is considered aphrodisiac, as long as it is eaten alive. It is placed at the tip of the tongue, and when the innocent creature walks inward, it is slowly crushed against the palate until it is squished. These brutalities, which would break the heart of a vegetarian, are erotic for others. Some people appreciate a taste of octopus, snail, snake, or spider carcass in the kisses of their party companion.
Esquinco is a lizard from North Africa to which, since times as remote as those of the Greeks and Romans, fantastic aphrodisiac properties have been attributed. The snout, the legs, and above all, the genital organs, were macerated in wine and cooked in a bed of herbs. The Persians mixed the meat with ground pearls and amber. An exquisite aphrodisiac was also prepared with hippomanes, a small piece of meat taken from the forehead of a newly born colt, mixed with the blood of the loved one. If the blood was menstrual, the effect could be fulminating. It is suspected that a similar concoction was given to drink by Cesonia to Caligula to win his love, causing him that frenetic and arrogant madness that caused him to commit so many crimes. But this explanation is typical of historians, who always find a way to blame women. In any case, the line between erotic potions and poisons is so subtle that it sometimes fades away, and more than one ends up in the grave. Currently, in the United States and in many other countries, prescribing or supplying potions is illegal, just as black magic is prohibited. On the one hand, science dismisses magic as pure superstition, and on the other hand, the law condemns it as dangerous.