When you block print on old cookbook pages and then make crossout poetry from the remaining words, it gets a bit… steamy.
It’s been a long while since I worked in a restaurant — I did for awhile when I was starting my freelance business, but quit in 2010 to go full time — but some of the stereotypes are true. There was quite a bit of intrigue and lack of inhibition that comes from long, fast-paced nights, in and out of a hot kitchen. Especially when the owner is a bit liberal with the Italian wine.
Perhaps some of it is how visceral the process of making food is, so visceral that we’ve taken food words and sexualized them. Steamy. Simmer.
And in English we also use food words as terms of endearment — sugar, pumpkin, cookie, sweetie pie.
Food and Sex and Science
The pleasure from eating and the pleasure from sex are also very intertwined in the brain. They both light up our pleasure centers, engage all of our senses and cause an avalanche of hormonal and chemical responses in our bodies.
I’m sure there’s some scientific research to back up what I’m saying here, but googling it is giving me a bunch of listicles on what to eat for better sex and I’m getting a little depressed.