Here’s a quick recipe for ten.
Question: If you were feeling sluggish, lacking the necessary ‘oomph’, but still keen to hold your own in the bedroom department, which of the following could be relied on to perk you up in all the right places?
1. A platter of fresh-shucked oysters and a glass vintage champagne.
2. One small spoonful honey with powdered gingereng.
3. Numerous ripe plums.
4. Tiramisu is a thick, rich, multilayered dessert made of sponge fingers. It’s served with whipped egg, sugar, mascarpone and cocoa.
The answer is “Yes.” . . All of them!
Yes, each of these foods is considered an aphrodisiac. Tiramisu even has a high cholesterol count that will set your heart racing.
Thanks to its alleged ‘perking’ qualities, this staple of Italian menus around the world has long been relied upon to add a certain ‘va va voom’ to proceedings when couples finally leave the table and venture upstairs.
The literal English translation of tiramisu is ‘lift me up’. The ‘lift’ is said to come from the crucial combination of egg yolk, sugar and caffeine. (The original did NOT contain alcohol.
Although the Campeol family is believed to have invented the dish, it was not patented. However, it appeared on their restaurant menu starting in 1972 (stock photo).
It was said to have served as a handy pick-me up for working women between demanding clients.
Even more scandalous was the fact that the madam (or Siora), would offer the dessert to her satisfied male clients to ensure they had enough energy to perform again at their home, without arousing suspicion.
Did I mention that the literal translation of tiramisu is ‘lift me up’? The ‘lift’ is said to come from the crucial combination of egg yolk, sugar and caffeine. (The original didn’t contain alcohol.
Whatever the truth about the dish’s salacious origins, when the death was announced this week of the ‘father of tiramisu’, restaurateur Ado Campeol, 93, the lusty residents of Treviso were plunged into deep mourning.
Even Luca Zaia the governor of the Veneto region issued a public statement in distress.
Ado Campeol (right), who was the original owner of Le Beccherie in Treviso, northeastern Italy, and the man who is believed to have invented tiramisu died at his home on Saturday. Pictured (left) with Alba, his wife.
As Ado’s story goes —and, as we have seen, it is just one of several — it all started in 1969, in the kitchens of the now-famous Le Beccherie restaurant, which the family had run since 1939.
Alba Linguanotto, his wife, was making ice cream in the kitchen when Roberto Linguanotto accidentally dropped a spoonful of mascarpone into a mixture with sugar and egg yolks that had been prepared for ice-cream.
Hey presto, it tasted sublime — and that was the beginning.
Alba, however, also had her own version of events — occasionally repeated by their son, Carlo, who now runs the restaurant.
In her story, the pudding dates back to 1955, when she was breastfeeding little Carlo, feasted on mascarpone mixed with sugar and biscuits soaked in coffee to keep her energy levels up, and later — again with Linguanotto — developed the world-famous dish.
Naturally, not everyone agrees on the exact source of a famous pudding.
According to the Accademia del Tiramisu (whose role is described as ‘transmitting the culture of tiramisu’), the dessert is much older, created by a resourceful Treviso madam as a libido-booster — ‘a Viagra from the 19th century’ — for her grateful clients.
Others link it to sbatudin — an energetically beaten mix of egg yolks and sugar, favoured by Treviso farmers as a replenisher for athletic newlyweds.
More controversial, however, was the claim by Italian food writer and essayist Gigi Padovani and wife Clara — who spent two years researching tiramisu — that documents dating back to the 1950s suggest the dessert also existed in the neighbouring region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
Naturally, officials from Veneto went bananas. Whoever invented it — chef or Siora — this was Treviso’s sexy pudding, not anyone else’s.
They even host an annual Tiramisu World Cup for amateur chefs, with two main categories: ‘original recipe’ and ‘creative recipe’.
To be fair, whatever the provenance, most agree that Le Beccherie not only perfected it, but also did an extraordinary job in promoting it, over just a few decades, into Italy’s most famous and varied dessert. There are over 200 variations.
In northern Italy, Amaretto is the alcohol; in the south it’s Marsala. Nigella Lawson uses Bailey’s, while fellow TV chef Giorgio Locatelli favours Grand Marnier but sometimes adds chopped bananas.
Some chefs dunk the sponge fingers in coffee for seconds, others leave them until they’re dark and soggy. Some use the panettone, an Italian fruit cake.
Jamie Oliver seems to have forgotten about eggs. The addition of cream is the most serious offense. An act of such disrespect that makes tiramisu purists — of whom there are many — extremely agitated.
Linguanotto, Le Beccherie’s chef, may have inadvertently invented it. He wanted everyone to be able to reap its unexpected benefits.
‘Every country has their own taste,’ he once said. ‘As long as it lifts you up, it’s fine by me.’