Valentine’s Day’s big business, but why do we willingly buy into the ‘erotic’ food scam every year? Rather than saying ‘I love you,’ isn’t our shameful lack of originality saying something lacklustre or worse: is your partner initiating foodie foreplay with a symbolic asparagus spear, or deadly indifference?

Like the bunch of half-dead roses at twice the price, Valentine’s Day food is compulsory. The cry of the herd’s in our ears as we ransack the isles for edible aphrodisiacs. It matters little that the object of our affection is crippled with IBS at the merest whiff of crustacean – it’s on the list – or that truffles, being swine-foraged growths reminiscent of a subterranean carbuncle, give sweetie the creeps – into the trolley!

At restaurants across the globe chefs find ten different ways of combining seafood, truffles and booze – the holy trinity of sexy foods. And then there’s chocolate for dessert, because we all know that nothing gets the ladies going like chocolate does. That’s right; this medical fact beggars the need for rohypnol.

Indeed, medial fact plays an elusive part in the mythology of these foods. Said to contain high quantities of performance-enhancing nutrients, there’s zero evidence that oysters rockefellar will raise your passion potential any more than tomato soup. As for the notion that these foods stimulate our carnal appetite with their suggestive appearance and aroma, it must be taken with a pinch of salt if our grocers and fishmongers are not to be portrayed as sitophile suppliers.

Valentine’s Day law stipulates that when we’re not eating erotic foods, we must be daubing our beloveds with them so that they resemble tribal lollipops. Food-play ‘hedonist’ Sex-Edd suggests that lovers: ‘Cover one another’s bodies in food and get dirty. Enjoy the sensations of the foods on your skin along with the licking and sucking.” Ever the seasoned pragmatist, Edd adds: ‘Don’t use overly sticky foods because you will stick together and prizing yourselves apart will feel similar to a full body waxing.”

Where’s the love? It fell down the cracks. Love is the incarnation of intimacy that exists between people. It fulfils our deepest desire to be known, and in the most fundamental sense, love nourishes us. When you find yourselves weighing the erotic potential of Green & Blacks v Belgian, or judiciously selecting organic asparagus over jumbo, block out the call of the herd and hear this one: Where is our originality; our wit? Where is our eccentricity and brave rebellion? Where is the man who will bring me a bunch of snowdrops and a bowl of Campell’s?