Tag: Valentine's Day

Sweethearts Conversation Hearts

Black and white illustration of an Indestructible Food: Sweethearts Conversation Hearts.

“Say it with candy…”

Since the beginning of time, humans have delighted in developing exciting ways to communicate. It began with gestures and grunts. Later, using one’s voice to speak a language was popular. Then came the written word. Folks invented technologies that helped our communications travel faster and farther than ever. Telegrams! Telephone calls! Emails! Texts! Video chats! Today, you can tell anyone almost anything instantly.

But, amidst all of this innovation, one primitive message delivery device continues to surface for just a few weeks each year…the conversation heart. 

Conversation hearts, for anyone who’s awfully far out of the loop, are chalky candy hearts stamped with messages ranging from fervent devotion to boredom and disdain. So, you know, the whole spectrum of romanic love. Sweethearts were invented by the New England Confectionary Company in 1902, as a related, but distinct follow-up to the already popular Necco wafer. Original messages included: “WHO ME?” and “LOVE U” and allowed crushes of all ages to communicate with sugar. Finally. 

As years passed, the language used to express love changed, and so too, did the the phrases printed on Sweethearts. Mixed in with classics like “BE MINE” were radical gems like “AS IF” and “AWESOME.” The most important for my formative years was 90s favorite “FAX ME.” I spent a lot of time dreaming of the eventual romantic interest who would fax me out on a date. (This technological rendezvous never actually occurred, and I’m still sorta mad at Necco for getting my hopes up in the first place.)

All faxes aside, the idea of updating phrases was a smart one, and, like every good reboot, it allowed each new generation to enjoy a thing that they should have considered completely uncool. 

We could speculate on the inclination to share our feelings with a kinda unpleasant candy rather than, say, a well-written poem or a heartfelt ballad, but let’s agree that the humble conversation heart hits the sweet spot (ha!) between over-zealous sentimentality and too-cool indifference. Which, as we all know, is the place where true love grows. 

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody.

Canned Oysters

A can of oysters sits in a decorative ocean teeming with schools of fish. They are truly an indestructible food.

A Valentine’s post about oysters and sex…

You can feel however you want about love and sex (“Yes, please!” “No, thanks!”) but the relationship between food and desire is pretty interesting. Since the beginning of civilization, folks have been looking for ways to have more sex. Foods, rituals, love potions… anything to grease the wheels of love. In the second century AD, the Roman physician Galen wrote that certain “warm and moist” foods had an aphrodisiac effect. Which kinda makes sense, I guess. But he also thought that foods that caused gas were good because somehow that’s how erections worked. (This hypothesis slays me, and I could make a ton of sexy fart jokes but I will not.)

The list of foods thought to be aphrodisiac is long: Chocolate, asparagus, figs, caviar, carrots, chiles, honey, onions, okra, sausages, and yes, oysters. Oysters fall squarely into the group of foods thought to be desire-inducing because they resemble genitals. They are wet and foldy and salty, and we’ll leave it at that. In an earlier post, we talked about how Italians eat lentils at New Year’s because they “look like coins” and will make them rich. The lesson to learn here is that eating foods that look like the things you want will maybe help you get the things you want.

It used to be a fortunate few living near the coast that had access to oysters for sexy reasons or otherwise. But in the 1820’s factories started canning them. Over the next several decades, oysters became a huge fad, were over-harvested, caused environmental destruction, and there is no evidence that anyone’s sex life improved. In fact, there has never been any scientific evidence that aphrodisiacs work at all. Which is kind of a bummer because food superstitions are way cool. 

If you want to have better/more sex, communication is good. Consent is key. Self-esteem is rad. And hey, a can of oysters can’t hurt. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.