The Valentines, those go-to saints for chocolate

A recipe for Pink Grapefruit and Smoked Salmon Salad

February really doesn’t have much going for it except for its brevity, so isn’t it fortunate that the Saint Valentines were martyred this month. Both - or all three - of them. Because of this unfortunate trio, the 14th gives us something to look forward to, particularly when considering what best to cook for our sweethearts. Such a lot of tosh is written about aphrodisiacal food.

Chocolate tops the list. The tradition for giving chocolates is a relatively new one, and with not a jot of romance behind it. It was a sales ploy, invented by Richard Cadbury, son of the founder of the Cadbury chocolate empire. He began packing chocolates in fancy boxes and introduced the first heart-shaped one for Valentine’s Day in 1861. Hallmark’s first Valentine’s Day card was only brought out in 1913.

We’ve taken to this commercially contrived opportunity with enthusiasm. Last year, during the week of Valentine’s Day in the US alone, more than 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and 58 millions pounds of other chocolate were sold, at a cost of $2.4 billion. Americans also spent $4.7 million on jewellery, and forked out $746.3 million on Valentine’s presents for their pets. This year, including on meals out, $18.9 billion will be spent.

That’s $14.5 billion more than the sum the UN is asking for to save Afghanistan from starvation.

It took a long time to arrive at this state of excess. The first association of Valentine’s Day with romance was made by Geoffrey Chaucer in his writings of 1382. It’s a puzzle why he made the connection as the St Valentines were Roman saints not passionate suitors. Yes, the plural. There isn’t one single St Valentine but two, St Valentine of Rome and St Valentine Bishop of Terni, and neither connected to romantic love. (Actually, there were said to be three contemporary St Valentines, the third a priest who along with his companions was martyred in the Roman province of Africa. But no-one knows why so he’s become a footnote.) The Roman one was martyred for ministering to persecuted Christians although legend does have it, without a speck of evidence, that he was martyred by Emperor Claudius for performing illegal marriages for his soldiers. It isn’t clear why the Terni St Valentine was sanctified.

This could be any one of three venerable men

When courtly love became a Middle Ages ‘thing’, knights would offer their virginal beloveds roses and tokens and songs of longing as testimony of their chaste desire. They certainly wouldn’t have presented them with anything sweet as sugar was far too precious a commodity to squander on a maiden.

To celebrate the romantic occasion in the UK, curry houses are a popular St Valentine’s night destination and ending a meal with something chocolate-y is obligatory in restaurants worldwide. These eating choices we lean towards are not entirely random. To defend itself against the heat of chili, the body releases endorphins that trigger the ‘feel good’ factor in the brain. Chocolate contains a natural heart stimulant, theobromine.

But you are unlikely to feel contentedly seductive with a burning tongue and weeping eyes, nor with a mouth glued together by the greedy guzzling of chocolate gateau or mousse. Worse, many supposedly aphrodisiacal dishes are totally soporific. Menus of the 1960s arise from the dead each Valentine's Day to encourage the flambé-ing of everything from shellfish to peppered steak swimming in cream-and-alcohol sauce. They revive cheese fondues with their risk of blistering your palate and dribbling cheese strings down your or your sweetie’s front, should you be feeding each other which of course is what a Valentine’s cheese fondue is for. To follow, there are always alcoholic Grand Marnier Soufflés and Crèpes Suzette with more setting alight. These are meals to send you to sleep with your clothes on.

That champagne always promoted alongside is also a hazard. If you haven't eaten all day before the romantic dinner, your blood-sugar levels will be low. A couple of glasses of any alcohol on an empty stomach will lower them further, making you feel at best depressed and at worst drunk in charge of two libidos. 

A low libido, it might be handy to know, can be caused by a deficiency of zinc. Aside from the fact that winter is one of the best seasons of the year to eat them, this may be a reason Valentine's Day is also associated with oysters. It's not just the salacious manner you can adopt in slurping them down nor the enticing but hopelessly slender chance of finding a pearl in one you've shucked yourself. It's the fact that they are one of nature's richest sources of zinc. So it's worth developing a taste for them, if only to build up to a satisfactory February 14th.

If you really can't stand the thought of a food that some associate with a heavy cold, turn to another good conveyor of zinc: eggs. It goes without saying this is not the occasion for presenting your amour with an egg-salad sandwich. Boiled quails' eggs with a bowl of celery salt to dip them into can become a sensuous starter, particularly if you make a provocative performance out of your peeling of them. (Watch the eating scene from Tom Jones if you want a lesson in how to dine suggestively.)

Surprisingly, quails’ eggs have higher nutrition values than regular hens’ eggs. 281% of your daily cholesterol consumption can come from quails’ eggs, against 124% from hens’. While too much cholesterol is bad for you, you need some cholesterol to make hormones and vitamin D and for its contribution to the membrane structure of every cell in your body. Valentine’s Day is a day for functioning bodies.

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To cook quails’ eggs, fill a saucepan with enough water to cover eggs by 2.5cms/1in. Bring water to a full boil. Gently lower in the eggs with a slotted spoon. Maintain a light boil and cook for 2 minutes for a soft yolk, 4 minutes or more for hard. Keep stirring the eggs so the yolks remain centred. Fill a bowl with boiling water and set aside. Drain the eggs into a bowl of cold water. Peel the eggs fast, sliding them into the bowl of hot water to keep them warm, or pass the eggs round for others to peel as they are at their best served warm.

This refreshing salad to follow a dish of quails’ eggs and plate of oysters is elegant yet casual enough to eat away from the table (in the boudoir, perhaps, if you own one - though is a boudoir meant for the male presence?). It takes no time to prepare. The Valentine element is expressed in its pinkness, and the fact that you will be able to function after digesting it. It’s light enough that you can afford to feed each other several boxes of chocolates after it.

1 pink or red grapefruit
small bunch of roquette/arugula 
250g/8 oz best smoked salmon
½ teaspoon peeled and grated fresh ginger
½ teaspoon icing sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons sesame oil
salt to taste

Shake the last five ingredients in a lidded jar until the sugar has dissolved.

Take a sharp knife and, holding the grapefruit in the other hand, peel it like you would an apple, turning it all the while, taking the pith away with the peel.

Slide the knife between each segment to cut it away from the membrane.

In a bowl, carefully toss together the grapefruit sections with the roquette/arugula, then add the dressing and toss again till well coated.

Pile the salad onto a plate, then crumple the smoked salmon informally into it.

Note: You can also make this as a salmon ceviche. Buy a 250g/8oz piece of wild salmon and carefully slice off its skin. Salt it all over with 2 tablespoons of rock salt and refrigerate 20 minutes. Then wash off the salt and pat dry. Slice the salmon 3mm/⅛ in thick. Whisk together the last five ingredients (with an optional tablespoon of finely chopped fresh red chili) and spoon all but 2 tablespoons over the salmon slices and massage this well into them. Marinate for 30 minutes then spread the salmon over a platter. Drop the grapefruit sections here and there with a scattering if you like of roquette/arugula leaves, then then whisk the remaining marinade and spoon it over the platter and serve - with tortilla chips if you like.