Just an historical note here – the Epicureans were a group of Ancient Greeks who followed the philosopher Epicurus (341 – 270BC) who taught that pleasure, particularly mental pleasure, was the highest good. Preparing and eating good food with good company is one of my favourite mental, and physical pleasures.

So I started my quest for the ultimate erotic meal with the list below (in alphabetical order, not very erotic start I know!) – foods from my research that are recognised as having some ‘stimulating’ qualities relating to seduction and sexual activity – to both genders. Of course its up to you to ‘set the scene’ for an intimate dinner with an appropriately sensual environment.

So here in essence are the elements. The next stage is to group a couple of potential meals into courses and I’m going to do this straight off the top of my head! Try this yourself – scan the above elements and you’ll soon be combining them in all sorts of ways – write down the ‘combinations’ as soon as they occur and build them into a menu. I’ll spare you this part of my process and go on to the recipes for my own top meal for an intimate evening.

Food Sex Dinner 1: Chocolate Chilli

Starter: Prawn and Avocado

I suggest a light blend of prawn and avocado to start, with plenty of zest and lemon to wake up the taste buds. That old classic of prawns in half a avocado pear with a zingy sauce and a dusting of red pepper should do the trick and get you handling fruit as quickly as possible. Accompany this with a glass of light flavoured wine such as a Muscadet or Gerwertztraminer, even some bubbles to really get it going. This will balance and counterpoint the more earthy tastes of the main course. Switch the white for a magnificent and fruity red about halfway through the chilli course; this will open new layers of taste in the spices.

If that starter isn’t dangerous enough – go for the Oyster. Either serve it ‘standard’ chilled in the shell with lemon or put one in a Schnapps glass with fresh, grated horseradish, chilli sauce and a shot of cold vodka. Down it in one – it’ll certainly ‘break the ice’!

Ingredients: Onions, shallots, garlic, kidney beans, parsley, oregano, basil, beef mince, oil, chocolate, tinned tomatoes, tomato paste, butter, mushrooms, peppers, chilli pepper, celery salt, thyme, red wine (the same as you are serving, find something fruity that will resonate with the dessert sauce).

Instructions: Chop onions, shallots, garlic to oil and fry gently to soften. Add fresh chopped parsley, oregano, basil, celery salt and thyme to infuse through oil for a moment. Add mince and mushrooms and stir to seal. Stir and fry this lightly for a couple of minutes then slop in a dash of red wine, add (chopped) tomatoes, stir, add tomato paste and stir, wash and add cooked kidney beans and stir. Salt and pepper and other herbs to taste. Drop in a couple of chunks of chocolate and watch them melt. Simmer gently and stir to satisfaction, working on the sauce.

Serve with perfect roast potatoes (crisp skin, fluffy inside) and braised celery, all sprinkled with fresh chopped parsley. (NB eating parsley will counter the effect of the garlic ‘after burn’.) Equally a wild rice mixture works well with chilli.

If you’ve got the chilli and spice combination right, this meal should result in a light sweat and the removal of some clothing. Enjoy a glass of red wine with your conversation between courses, enriching the palate with wine blackberries in preparation for the next course.

[Apologies to vegetarians are in order here. Chocolate Chilli works nearly as well with Quorn mince, and not quite as well with textured soya granules.]

Indian restaurants are famous for serving ‘sweet lassi’, a yoghurt / milky drink after a curry because the oils in milk dilute some of the powerful spices and unwrap their flavours. Ice cream can do the same, but don’t serve so much it chills the digestion. You can buy Pistachio nuts, shell them and put in a liquidiser to chop, fold them into commercial ice cream to re-chill in the freezer. I use vanilla ice-cream (with extra vanilla) but you might have a different preference. 

If possible make up a fresh fruit sauce by boiling fruit of your choice in a little water, mashing, adding sugar to make syrup and sieving to store. You can use this sauce hot or cold with a splash of appropriate liquor. 
Dust the ice cream with icing sugar and add strawberries or fruit of your choice. A pinch of roast, crushed almonds will add new layers to the flavour as will a grating of the chocolate you used in the chilli. Try: Raspberry, Tayberry, Blackberry, Orange, Lemon, Lime, Quince, Grape themes

Don’t take too long before the delicious aroma of fresh coffee percolates from the kitchen, just long enough to normalise the teeth after ice cream. Serve the coffee ‘Turkish’ with two or three exclusive and high quality chocolates (preferably with a Pistachio element to harmonise the meal). Take turns eating each chocolate, even sharing them and describe to the other person what is happening to your taste buds.

You still have a glass or two of wine left to complete the meal, that’s if you haven’t started on the Amaretto already!