Lewd Food: The Complete Guide to Aphrodisiac Edibles, by Robert Hendrickson

Lewd Food: The Complete Guide to Aphrodisiac Edibles, by Robert Hendrickson. 1974 hardcover. 348 pages, very nice condition.

More of a history and exploration of food used to enhance the libido, with a few recipes spread throughout. Chapters loosely break the erotic menu down by ingredients. Specific chapters address vegetables, or fruits and nuts, sweets, alcohol, common meats, and exotic bits of butchery. Oysters get a long, adulatory chapter all their own, as do lobsters and a few others. Hendrickson makes only passing mention of the magical or downright toxic philter like strychnine, and recommends strongly against them - as he does against eating of human flesh, however many times and places the practice has arisen. And, in the introduction and final chapter, he echoes Tom Lenhrer's dictum that "when incorrectly viewed, everything is lewd."