Valentine’s Day our legacy of martyr, saint

Valentine’s Day is for the birds. Honest.

Valentine’s Day originally was called Bird’s Wedding Day because it was believed to be the day that birds selected their mates and began to breed. In February, any excuse for a holiday will do, and ancient Romans turned the midmonth bird mating ritual into Lupercalia, a fertility rite to honor the gods Juno and Pan. The convention was that young maidens would write love messages and place them in an urn. Unmarried men, who were much too early for Internet dating services, would gleefully remove a message, select a mate and begin to breed.

It was the noted wet blanket and Roman emperor Claudius II who brought about St. Valentine’s Day. Around A.D. 270, Claud forbade his troops to get married or even to become engaged. He believed that if his troops got married, they would want to stay home with their wives and mothers-in-law instead of marching off to slaughter the Visigoths.

The flaw in that argument is that most married men I know cannot wait to get out of the house. Why else would ice fishing be so popular?

Enter our boy Valentine. Valentine was a doctor and a Christian when that activity was highly dangerous, especially around lions. Valentine was among the last doctors to make home visits and was loved for his practice of praying for his patients and mixing bitter medicine with wine, milk or honey to make treatment more palatable. He also was loved for defying the emperor and marrying young Roman couples.

Claudius was not amused. He ordered Valentine arrested, imprisoned, then beheaded on Feb. 14, 270, the eve of Lupercalia. Val was neither the first nor the last man to lose his head over love. Valentine was named a martyr and a saint by the Catholic Church. The holiday was moved from the 15th to the 14th and renamed St. Valentine’s Day in 496 by Pope Gelasius I.

Over the centuries, the letters of Lupercalia gradually evolved into valentines. Chaucer wrote of early valentines in his “Parlement of Foules,” “For this was sent on Seynt Valentine’s Day when every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.”

Today’s Valentine’s Day celebration involves dinner, champagne, chocolate and, if a man has any brains at all, flowers. I have never understood the chemistry or witchery involved, but flowers can erase the dumbest move, the most egregious act of forgetfulness, when diamonds, gifts or baubles would fail. Don’t ask. Just do it next year to make up for this year’s failures.

When it comes to the holiday meal, consider the natural aphrodisiac.

The Chinese favored the mighty apricot and the fuzzy, juicy peach to aid in seduction. In her novel “Claudine,” the French author Colette described the simple banana as “sheer heaven, like eating Liberty velvet.” Some physicians believe the bromelain in bananas boosts the sexual performance of the male. The arrival of the new fig crop was celebrated by Greeks with ritual orgies. Papayas and oranges also have their supporters.

In 19th century France, a bridegroom’s prenuptial dinner had to include no less than three courses of warm asparagus. Early Mideastern royalty considered the carrot to be a wonderful aid to seduction.

The main course should include caviar and the fabulous oyster, which spends its life alternating between the male and female sex. Those who seek virtuous lives must avoid the mighty truffle, “which arouses erotic and gastronomic memories among the skirted sex and memories gastronomic and erotic among the bearded sex,” according to Brillat-Savarin, 1825.

The beverage should be champagne, “the drink of love.” Bartenders say that whiskey makes a woman stop arguing, beer soothes her, gin disarms her, rum cajoles her and champagne arouses her.

Dessert simply must be chocolate, which was considered to be such an aphrodisiac that it was banned from some monasteries.

Bon appetit!