Extracted from this article: Forbidden fruits -- A new book explores the juicy relationship between food and sex.

Feb. 13, 2006 Sweethearts "hunger" for each other's caress. Crooners compose ballads about the "taste" of sweet lips. After a spirited romp with a lover, we talk of feeling "sated" and "satisfied." Indeed, since our first meal at our mother's breast -- not to mention the moment Eve took a bite of that infamous apple -- our edible world has been inextricably bound to the erotic.

A new book by food writer Bunny Crumpacker, "The Sex Life of Food: When Body and Soul Meet to Eat," takes an expansive look at that loaded relationship, mingling culinary history, psychology and pop culture to better understand what we crave, and why. Whether it is the simple comforting pleasures of macaroni and cheese or vanilla ice cream, or the thrilling exoticism of fine caviar, foods soothe not only physical but emotional aches. Some foods mirror our moods; a bowl of cold cereal begs to be eaten alone while a roast turkey symbolizes a feast to be shared. Meeting your valentine for a meal? Pay close attention, Crumpacker warns, because eating can be as much a test of sexual compatibility as a matter of sustenance.

With luscious descriptions and spicy stories of gastronomic erotica, Crumpacker's book leaves readers with a renewed appetite -- and lends credence to the maxim that we're defined not only by what we eat but by how we eat.

I don't know about you, but Outback's Sydney Sinful Sundea screams "orgy" at me.

And for the sexiest scene in a movie starring food, I suggest "Tom Jones", the 1964 Oscar winner (was nominated for 9 Oscars, won 4 of them), starring Albert Finney. And yes, the What's New Pussycat singer got his stage name from this movie. Anyway, it has one heck of an erotic scene where I don't believe a word is said, all the action takes place with food.


Tags: sex, food, erotic, erotica