Are Brussels sprouts an aphrodisiac?

Given that it’s winter I wasn’t particularly surprised to see Brussels sprouts on the menu at Manta when I went for dinner the other day. I was surprised to hear them mentioned not once, but twice on Farmer Wants a Wife last night. Meeting each of his 10 would-be wives for the first time, Farmer Phil bravely opened the conversation with that great ice-breaker “Do you like Brussels sprouts?”. Farmer Nate, after waving goodbye to one lovely lassie, wistfully commented “She has buns of steel. You could bounce a Brussels sprout off them.”

Ummm, hello, have I missed something about this much-maligned veggie? Are these little green cannonballs actually an aphrodisiac for hot-blooded blokes? Is rural Australia a hot-bed of Brussels sprouts fueled lust? Or is this some sneaky ploy by the Brussels sprouts marketing board to give them much needed street-cred? Both farmers run cattle so they have no vested interest in driving up sales. I checked.

There are few veggies quite as disliked as Brussels sprouts. The Sydney Morning Herald last month reported that British naval captain Wayne Keble had banned Brussels sprouts from the HMS Bulwark, labelling them the ”devil’s vegetable”.

The problem is that most people overcook Brussels sprouts, in the process releasing some nasty sulfur compounds that affect both the taste and smell. If boiling, three to five minutes should be long enough, or take a tip from the chefs at Manta and thinly slice, then sautee with garlic and pancetta. Delicious.

It’s possible that Farmers Phil and Nate have both stumbled on the perfect method for cooking Brussels spouts (does the Country Women’s Association Cookbook have a good recipe?) and as a result only have positive associations to draw on. Or it could be they taste different when eaten with a side serve of fresh country air.

I’d certainly be interested to know what the producers of Farmers Wants a Wife feed those wannabe wives before they send them on their speed-dates. Surely grown women don’t usually go ga-ga over a bloke in less time than it takes to make a cup of tea, or as my friend Annabel put it in a text message, “from tongue tied to tongue-ies in minutes”? Brussels sprouts maybe.