the handsome Don Maurizio, a great Venezuelan cheesemaker, as he stirred milk with the whole length of his arm—"one of [the author's] most pleasant memories of that difficult period as an immigrant in a foreign land." Similarly, in the chapter "The Language of Flowers," Allende recalls how the forget-me-not flower became the symbol of her nostalgia after she had to flee Chile following the military coup in 1973, in which her uncle, socialist president Salvador Allende, was assassinated. Also, the author's family tree plays a consistent part in her sensual memoir: from table manners to attitudes toward food to relationships, Allende introduces her ancestors, grandparents, relatives and immediate family members' adventures to illustrate her own development as a gourmet-lover. The chapter entitled "The Orgy" begins with the author's childhood memory of her stepfather's elaborate preparations for romantic evenings with his wife, involving Turkish cushions, Peruvian waltzes, luxurious cocktails, and toast points with caviar—all of which sparked Allende's youthful imagination.

The everyday element of Allende's writing in Aphrodite is summed up in her statement that sex and food are the main pillars of existence; she argues that "all of creation is one long uninterrupted cycle of digestion and fertility," as well as that "everything in life [can be] reduced to a process of organisms devouring one another, reproducing themselves, dying, fertilizing the earth, and being reborn transformed." The author further writes that eating and lovemaking are the two things that men and women have in common; the text predominantly deals with heterosexual desire, as Allende identifies herself as such, save for a few mentions of homosexuality (see "The Gigolo" chapter). The book mainly caters to the heterosexual audience in discussing the male-female relationships; thus, sex and food as parts of the everyday life are explored within this realm. However, any discussion of fertility as a purpose of heterosexual union is dismissed early on in the introduction: the author announces that "everyone else, you will have noticed, already has too many children" and that she will instead "concentrate on pleasure" and write about sensuality in both men and women.

Allende proceeds to discuss everyday issues as she advises readers how to prepare a romantic meal and arrange a seduction, how to shop for the best ingredients, and how to "cheat" with truffle-scented oil. Among other things, the book includes basic descriptions of food groups, "Biology 101" analysis of the functioning of human senses, a brief lesson on which wine to serve with which dish, and the necessity of bringing some "spice" into long relationships. The author also writes in a general way about various issues that are part of daily discussion and awareness if not practice, such as the effects of controlled substances on the libido, allergies to certain foods, religious differences and their influence on one's diet and sexual practices, and the impact of one's background on personal preferences—in cuisine and romance.

Overall, Aphrodite is composed of a loosely organized plethora of mythical, historical, and fantastic accounts on the nature, reputation, and effects of aphrodisiacs. In a postmodern style, the author casually and easily crosses the boundaries between the numerous fields of her research to combine erotic literature, folklore, anthropology, history, biology, and various theories in her writing. The items Allende lists in support of a single statement about the aphrodisiac properties of a certain fruit can range from historical anecdotes about the practices of rulers of antiquity, to anthropological examinations of certain patterns of human behavior, to conclusions drawn from personal experience, to scientific analysis of chemical elements of the aforementioned fruit. In a single paragraph in the "Etiquette" chapter, Allende mentions the joy she experiences when making cookies and cleaning vegetables, the sensuality of food eaten with one's hands, the touching of lascivious bodies and delicious dishes at Roman orgies, and the incestuous scene in the 1960s English film Tom Jones when the hero and his mother share a Pantagruelian meal.

The author draws on a variety of fields in her narrative to enrich the descriptions of the world's aphrodisiacs. From history, she takes the recordings of the use of love charms and potions; the impact of religious and class systems on the evolution of attitudes toward sex and food; numerous anecdotes from the lives of noted personages (from the notorious to the glorified); and the occurrence of miscellaneous trends in erotica, through the centuries and all over the world. From biology, Allende borrows the analyses of the functions of human bodies; the statistics on sensual and neural experiences, in humans and other species; and the properties and effects of various chemicals present in particular ingredients or substances. The study of anthropology comes in handy with reports on unusual dietary and sexual habits in remote places and times; a discussion of carnivorous, cannibalistic, and otherwise specific practices; the beliefs in certain aphrodisiac powers responsible for poaching, black magic, and fasting; and the notions of beauty, femininity, and masculinity in different civilizations. Further, Allende also turns to many examples in popular culture to prove her points, from the obsessive depravity of Howard Hughes to the fashionable nouvelle cuisine which the author strongly detests. The book is filled with references to movie scenes in which Epicurean characters devour lush meals, authors of erotica who defended their right to write about passion as they feel it, Latin crooners whose voices are a powerful tool of seduction, and film directors whose recipe for a perfect martini is "allowing a ray of light to pass through the bottle of vermouth and for an instant touch the gin." Allende also makes use of literature, taking excerpts from the Bible, poems by Pablo Neruda, passages from Oriental erotic texts, and various prose and poetry on the topics of romance and cuisine to diversify her assessment of the nature of aphrodisiac.

All in all, Allende's Aphrodite abounds with the characteristics that securely place it within the postmodern, Latin-American, female-authored tradition, despite the tendency at first glance to classify this work as a cookbook, a pillow book, or a self-indulgent, self-help memoir—and, in most cases, as all three. The sense of Aphrodite's lightness is created by the author's casual tone and seeming disorganization of her prose; but the numerous threads of themes, arguments, and illustrations that comprise the colorful texture of the book imperceptibly carry the weight of a new theory of meaning. Allende's work reflects her own montage approach to replenishment and can serve as a piece in our own.

Source: Jeremy W. Hubbell, in an essay for Literature of Developing Nations for Students, Gale, 2000. Hubbell has an M.Litt. from the University of Aberdeen and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in History at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.

Just as the pleasures of eating can replace the pleasures of sex, so reading about food can provoke as much satisfaction as flicking through some soft porn. Isabel Allende's charming new book aims to reconcile the two appetites, offering sensual recipes to tempt jaded palates. I don't think her collection of tips and stories is meant to be swallowed too seriously; these are titbits for grazers; amuse-gueules in the French tradition. Not a pot-boiler; rather, a spicy word-salad. The compilation opens with Allende's ruefully honest admission: "I repent of my diets, the delicious dishes rejected out of vanity, as much as I lament the opportunities for making love that I let go because of pressing tasks or puritanical virtue."

Her solution is that of the novelist: to fantasise, to write it all down, to make it all up. That way she can stay faithful to the husband she assures us she adores, while at the same time hoping to lure him from his computer to experience some new frothy sexual experiences. When you are 50, she explains, and have stayed married to the same man all your life, you have to pep up his flagging interest. So in one sense this is a manual for women in the old style: how to keep your husband interested.

Allende doesn't really seem to imagine that her husband will enter the kitchen and whip up these little feasts for her, though she declares what every woman knows: that a man who cooks for you is a desirable creature. Women are sexier if they don't let on they know how to cook, she warns, but nonetheless her book seems aimed at female chefs. Its male readers, of whom I imagine there could be many, will find it a treasure trove of advice on sharpening up their amatory and culinary techniques. It is, indeed, just the thing to read in bed.

Allende's humour and self-deprecation enliven her pages. She's never known anyone who cooks or makes love from a manual, she tells us, so why should we buy her book, we "people who work hard to earn a living and who pray in secret, like you and me, improvise in casseroles and bedroom romps as best we can, using what we have at hand, without brooding over it or making too much fuss, grateful for our remaining teeth and our enormous good fortune in having someone to embrace"? Her modesty gives a shrugging answer: "because the idea of poking about a bit in aphrodisiacs seems amusing to me and I hope it will be to you as well."

So right away we know that really it's the art and pleasure of reading that's being offered. Allende's testers only found the recipes sexually arousing when told that they were meant to be; the control group reported no surges in libido, though they enjoyed their exquisite dinners and conversation. Telling stories, playing verbal games and flirting with words like shuttlecocks, these are the real turn-on for Allende. In between offering up light, well-flavoured reminiscences sauced with humour she imparts a certain amount of kitchen lore and suggests new ways to make roast chicken romantic; one technique is to call the bird Valentino.

This is mainly a delightful book, juicy with affectionately prepared vignettes that turn out well every time like an expert chef's souffles. Occasionally you can feel there are too many loving descriptions of bourgeois dining tables loaded with fine silver and plate and you long for Allende to describe, instead, the stern delights of eating fish and chips in a howling gale on the beach at Skegness.

Her only contact with English eroticism, however, is a practice from "certain rural areas" whereby "the woman kneads flour, water and lard, sprinkles the dough with her saliva, then places it between her legs to endow it with the form and savour of her secret parts. She bakes this bread and offers the loaf to the object of her desire." Have Delia and Sophie been keeping this recipe to themselves all this time? I think we should be told.

Source: Michele Roberts, "Keeping Sex on the Menu," in The London Times, April 30, 1998, p. 45.

If this is just a cookbook, then Allende's novels are just potboilers! From the author of such incomparable novels as House of the Spirits (1985) and the highly evocative collection Stories of Eva Luna (1991) comes a luscious book about aphrodisiacs—the bridge between gluttony and lust. To care less about food preparation with seduction in mind would not prohibit any appreciator of beautiful writing from thoroughly enjoying this extraordinarily seductive book. Yes, Allende does provide recipes, and many of them may spark chemistry between two individuals. But more important than the recipes are her historical and biological ruminations on the inseparability of food and eroticism. With her "sole focus [being] on the sensual art of food and its effects on amorous performance," the author wanders delectably through the ways food arouses the senses, citing tales and truths, folklore and science, and drawing into her discussions other topics such as the role of language in seduction, the need for physical touch, and the pleasures of drinking wine—an act that "lessens inhibitions, relaxes, and fosters joy, three fundamental requirements for good performance." Readers may view their lunch-time Big Macs and fries in a different light after enjoying Allende's pages, for, as she posits, "all of creation is one long uninterrupted cycle of digestion and fertility."

Source: Leslie Chess Feller, "Books in Brief: Nonfiction," in The New York Times, April 5, 1998, sec. 7, p. 25, col. 4.

"Eggs"—from caviar to the kind produced by chickens—"lend themselves to all sorts of naughtiness," Isabel Allende writes. (She prefers hers "served on my lover's navel with chopped onion, pepper, salt, lemon and a drop of Tabasco.") In Aphrodite, Allende turns the joyous preparation and consumption of fine food into an erotic catalyst; it culminates in a collection of serious recipes for your first—or next—bacchanal. Illustrated by Robert Shekter's bold nymphs and mischievous satyrs, Aphrodite discusses forbidden fruits, orgies, whispers, pheromones, erotic poetry and Indian tantric rites. Be warned: some aphrodisiacs require more courage and dedication than others. In China, baby cockroaches are tossed into warm rice wine and downed in a single swallow. Although Allende mentions exotica like shark fins, baboon testicles, eye of salamander and the urine of a virgin, her recipes use ingredients that "can be ingested without peril." Serving suggestions, however, can be bold. Regarding a mouthwatering arroz con leche: "You can cover your lover from head to foot ... and slowly lick it off."

Source: Brad Hooper, "Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses," (book review) in The Booklist, Vol. 94, No. 11, February 1, 1998, p. 875.

Sex and food, once celebrated as two of life's great joys, suffer a lot of bad press these days. Genuine epidemics, coupled with monthly findings of new things that are bad for us, have pushed otherwise happy souls into programs of agonizing denial and, in severe instances, abstinence. Thankfully, in this sophisticated defense of pleasure, novelist Allende (The House of the Spirits) puts the joy back into eating and loving with all the panache that marks the best of her fiction. Though passionate about her subject, she remains consistently whimsical with this mix of anecdotes, recipes and advice designed to enhance any romantic encounter. As always, her secret weapon is honesty: "Some [aphrodisiacs] have a scientific basis, but most are activated by the imagination." Allende's vivacity and wit are in full bloom as she makes her pronouncements: "There are few virtues a man can possess more erotic than culinary skill"; "When you make an omelet, as when you make love, affection counts for more than technique." Her book is filled with succinct wisdom and big laughs. Despite sections titled "The Orgy" and "Supreme Stimulus for Lechery," Allende comes down emphatically for romance over sex and for ritual over flavor in a work that succeeds in being what it intends to be—fun from the first nibble to the last.

Source: Genevieve Stuttaford, Maria Simson, and Jeff Zaleski, "Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses," (book review) in Publisher's Weekly, Vol. 245, No. 3, January 19, 1998, p. 360.