Women & Sex

The Best Food For Your Libido

Chef Wesley Genovart of NYC’s Degustation teaches you the art of culinary seduction with this uplifting dessert

By: Mike Zimmerman, Still Lifes: David Prince, Portrait: Pascal Perich
Published: July/August 2007   [ Updated: Feb 20, 2009 - 5:43:52 PM ]

Wesley Genovart's culinary philosophy is perfectly pitched toward the amateur kitchen jockey: “Keep an open mind.” Combine that with persistence, he says, and you’ll master some great dishes along the way. At New York City’s Degustation, which means “the art of tasting food,” the 27-year-old creates small tapas-style masterpieces, such as a Spanish tortilla (two potato slices served with pickled jalapeño and quail egg), and combinations you don’t see every day, such as short-rib-stuffed squid. The tapas approach, he says, is especially effective for a date. “Small plates allow you to try a lot of things. In the end, you’re eating the same amount as an appetizer and an entrée, but you’ve tried—and shared—five different things.”

Genovart’s mind was permanently opened as a child in Spain (he came to the United States at age 12), and his best summer food memory is right out of Hemingway: “Every summer, my grandparents and their neighbors would slaughter a huge pig,” he says. “Then they would cook up the loin and all the things they couldn’t cure. You’d eat everything fresh that day, and with the rest you’d make sausage for the winter. It was a big party, and everyone from the three different families would split up the sausages.”

From then on, for Genovart, food was about drama and making unforgettable impressions. There was power there, if you could harness it. Especially with women. He sees it every night at Degustation, where an open-kitchen layout has him cooking right in front of his customers. “Girls are definitely more into the open-kitchen style than guys are,” he says. “Almost all of the interaction we get comes from women.”

Sensing a formula here? Cooking a dramatic meal for a woman provokes a response. And the dessert Genovart created for Best Life cuts right to the heart of the romantic dinner, for not only is it fresh and tasty, but it also has a certain uplifting effect. Here’s why: Good blood flow is crucial for sexual arousal, as we all know. And blood flow in the small penile arteries is affected by plaque buildup sooner than in the larger coronary arteries. Straw­berries offer triple antiplaque protection: They’re rife with fiber, which helps lower LDL cholesterol and improves blood flow. They deliver a big dose of vitamin C, which combats free radicals in your bloodstream that could dampen erections. And on top of that, a recent study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition found that vitamin C ­dramatically decreases the levels of C-reactive protein—a blood marker for inflammation linked to fatty buildup in the arteries.

To boost the romantic quotient further, garnish the dish with a square of dark chocolate. Research shows that flavonols in chocolate can increase production of nitric oxide, which increases blood flow. Plus, ever since the days of the Aztecs, chocolate has been thought to have aphrodisiac qualities. Modern scientists chalk this up to phenylethylamine, a compound that stimulates the brain’s pleasure centers.

Now you just need to whip up a romantic meal to get it all going. Here’s where the need for an open mind kicks in. Genovart urges men to try special food effects that look far more complicated than they really are (thus making yourself look that much more the chef). “Try foams, for example,” he says. “People get nervous about foams, but they’re so easy. Adding a grapefruit foam to steamed artichokes is delicious and gives an impressive presentation. All you do is juice a grapefruit, and then add lecithin granules, which you can buy at any health-food store. People shy away from things because they think they’re too complicated, but once they realize how simple something is, they’ll do it all the time. If we had that same attitude about medicine, we’d still be dying of old diseases.”

Not to mention that if you surprise your wife or girlfriend by whipping up a dessert of strawberries and carbonated basil-mint foam…well, let’s just say the evening is probably not going to end with dessert.