The sexiest food of all may also be the most comforting.Fiorella Valdesolo considers the oyster.

The oyster's association with desire stretches back centuries.

- Words Fiorella Valdesolo

As legend goes, Giacomo Casanova, the 18th-century Venetian whose surname has become synonymous with seduction, would start each morning by slurping 50 raw oysters to, quite literally, gird his loins for a day of sexual encounters. In Greek mythology, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and pleasure, is said to have been born of the sky god Uranus after his testicles fell into the sea, and she then emerged from the foam of the frothy waters perched on an oyster shell. In the richly rendered paintings depicting domestic settings by 17th-century Dutch Masters like Jan Steen (in 1658's The Oyster Eater) or Frans van Mieris the Elder (in 1661's The Oyster Meal) oysters were positioned as devices of flirtation. Something that has continued into this century in films like Tampopo (1985) and Tom Jones (1963), where slurping their moist, briny flesh is a vehicle of temptation.