Cooking, Seduction And National Cultures

May 15, 2004 9:11 PM

The Food Of Love:Oh, forget about music already. What should you cook if you want to woo a lover? According to Lisa Hilton, it all depends on what nationality (s)he is and what country you're living in... P.S. Shame on The Observer for choosing the inflammatory but incidental title I've Never Had Good Sex With A Vegetarian!
posted by MiguelCardoso (23 comments total)

It's possible to have good sex with a vegetarian, but definitely impossible to have good sex with someone who isn't passionate - and experimental - when it comes to food. Oysters may not be an aphrodisiac, but they're a sure-fire sign that someone is willing to commit him/herself toward the end of pleasure.

Similarly, if the sex is bad, you shouldn't stay for breakfast. (But you already knew that, didn't you?)
posted by stonerose at 9:23 PM on May 15, 2004

Metafilter: you shouldn't stay for breakfast.
posted by namespan at 9:41 PM on May 15, 2004

Wow. Never have I amassed such towering hatred of a food writer. And in such a short period of time, too.

Logically, someone as obsessed by the food/sex correlation as I am would select her lovers accordingly; but as with crème brulée, I never quite had the discipline to resist what I knew would turn out badly (hence the vegetarian. He had little round glasses and did yoga. Really).

Oh, the wondrous and adventure-filled paths that this epicurean sophisticate has travelled!
posted by bingo at 9:45 PM on May 15, 2004

I've had plenty of good sex with a vegetarian. Hell, sometimes there was even more than one person in the room.
posted by NortonDC at 9:51 PM on May 15, 2004

And, since somebody has to do it...
posted by NortonDC at 9:58 PM on May 15, 2004

I love how all the textads displayed next to this thread are already about health food and vegetarian products.
posted by bingo at 10:09 PM on May 15, 2004

Those textads are a riot sometimes -- last week there was a story about how to "do" cough syrup to get high, and guess what was featured in the ads?
posted by clevershark at 10:29 PM on May 15, 2004

Migs, thanks for the link and the Twelfth Night reference... we just wrapped up that show and that damn soliloquy is wonderfully stuck in my head.
posted by moonbird at 10:33 PM on May 15, 2004

Ah...cooking...one of my favorite things to do. It ranks up there with eating, drinking and having sex. On the days when I can get all of them happening at once...well, it usually means I'll have to clean fondue off the hardwoods...but really, isn't it worth it? ;)
posted by dejah420 at 12:35 AM on May 16, 2004

You said hardwood, hee hee.

But seriously, I've been a vegetarian for 13 years, and slept with plenty. I happen to believe I'm a pretty great fuck.
posted by tr33hggr at 7:05 AM on May 16, 2004

Where's that bacon grease?
posted by johnny7 at 7:12 AM on May 16, 2004

If you'll allow me a provocative, brute-force bit of armchair psycho-sociology... I think there are a couple of very distinct sorts of vegetarians. One group consists of people who have food and control issues - many of them don't really like food, hate the idea of anything "messy" and seem to be comforted by limiting themselves to a subset of food. These people are invariably awful in bed.

Other vegetarians are deeply passionate, politicized people who love food. For them, vegetarianism can be a creative, vibrant, enjoyable outgrowth of an 'engaged' worldview. These people can be good in bed, as long as they're not too busy being smug.
posted by stonerose at 7:27 AM on May 16, 2004

But both kinds hate meat, and you're meat.
posted by jfuller at 7:33 AM on May 16, 2004

No - both kinds hate dead meat. One kind loves life.
posted by stonerose at 7:36 AM on May 16, 2004

It's story time... a friend of mine told me this true and revolting tale last night. When he was 10 or so, his father and stepmother had a thing for sex toys, and one rather peculiar night, they had a go at it with summer sausage. After their session, they didn't quite know how to dispose of it, since it was unwrapped it would spoil in the trash. Not thinking any better, they put the poor, orifice-tainted sausage in the very back of the fridge.

Ther next morning, to their horror, the sausage was gone... To their further shock, little Chris innocently confessed that he indeed ate the whole thing, but it was delicious. Upon turning 18, his father told him exactly where that sausage had been...

Play on.
posted by moonbird at 8:10 AM on May 16, 2004

That article was deeply irritating - however online you don't get to see the lovely pictures of nearly clothed Ms Hilton they chose to accompany the article. Shame.
posted by ascullion at 8:19 AM on May 16, 2004

True AND revolting. moonbird wins!
posted by tr33hggr at 8:49 AM on May 16, 2004

"Uh, hello, Dickory... er... Hickory Farms? Yeah, could you ship my order in a plain brown wrapper? Yes? Sweet."
posted by stonerose at 8:58 AM on May 16, 2004

There are a tonne of cookbooks dedicated to this subject. The best is Jacqui Malouf's book, BootyFood.
posted by kristin at 9:03 AM on May 16, 2004

Moonbird - I'd wager you've spawned a whole series of urban legends there.

".....the systemic toxic load exerted by several pounds of compacted, putrefying flesh as it squeezes it's way through their distended digestive tracts - sloughing off a thick coat off hardened fat along the way to coat the lower intestines and bowel. This fat, as it both hardens and decays, releases free-radicals to cause cellular, genetic damage that, in turn, may result in cancer.

This is why dedicated predator species have digestive tracts shorter than those of Homo Sapiens."


Mmmm sexy, huh?

But, Ms. Hilton's Epicurean tastes are surprisingly crude (or not) for one so steeped in the finer cuisine of the senses - the 'three bites' rule seems to have slipped past her keen gaze quite unnoticed.

The sparing-meat eaters are vigorous and fullblooded, while the meat-gorgers tend towards the slow, corpulent, dull, and flaccid.

"Mistresses have changed the face of nations and bought down governments often while wearing some really good outfits." - Lisa Hilton (2003)

Catty and tumescent, with giggly sexual titillation over men's abs and penis lengths, leeching off the decaying throne of European high culture, with the sleek, feral lines suggestive of plastic surgery and the cocky, confident sheen most usually born of money, propelled along by Belle du Jour rumors, a racy historical novel, and an iron control over her personal information - as displayed on Google - which turns the current Bush White House green with envy, I give you Lisa Hilton !

"Of course there's more to a man than his penis. We're not that shallow. We also laughed at dodgy teeth, receding hairlines, incipient paunches and spotty shoulders - but of course none of it really mattered so long as he had a sense of humour. Women are always claiming that a sense of humour is the most important quality a man can possess, but to paraphrase Patrick Bateman, Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, who wants to fuck a guy with a sense of humour? He's only got a sense of humour to make up for being so ugly."

Oh, and - besides all the sex and food snobbery, and cheap cuts on silly, fussy minority groups such as yoga-practicing, flaccid vegetarians (mostly a trollish stage prop creation, that, to puff a slightly unconvincing bad-girl image) there's a bit of Tibetan Buddhism in this tale too, for good measure - for some spiritual depth to counterbalance all that sexy, food, sexy food and foody sex.

Oh, and of course - incest never fails to titillate.

"My father - Freudians take note - held the shallow, escarped shell up to my lips as my little sister writhed in disgust, I tipped up my head, exposing the soft skin of my teenage neck, my mouth opening, my eyes involuntarily closing as it slipped down my throat as easy as original sin. I swallowed hard, I was initiated, and I have been an addict ever since" "
posted by troutfishing at 9:35 AM on May 16, 2004

Wow, stonerose, deciding there are two types of vegetarians is so much more insightful than that dumb person who thinks there's only one.

And of course people's control issues carry over into their sex lives. I mean there are no instances whatsoever of people who have control issues enjoying sex because it's a vacation from control, messy, and thus naughty.

Yeah, you kinda touched a nerve. But only because I'm a finicky eater who is a vegetarian because I like life and don't really like meat—and I'm a good fuck. I even have references.
posted by dame at 1:14 PM on May 16, 2004

These people can be good in bed, as long as they're not too busy being smug.

Oh no! Did I state an opinion on MetaFilter? Silly me.
posted by tr33hggr at 2:47 PM on May 16, 2004

Fucking Vegetarians.

(I'm starting a club, and that's the name)
posted by milovoo at 10:52 PM on May 16, 2004