I rolled my eyes when I saw it was a video talk, but actually I was talking with a friend about aphrodisiacs last week and wanted to know more about beliefs about them, so this really is scratching an itch. I also find it interesting to hear about how people in distance places/times think/thought about food/cooking (I'm a Levi-Strauss fanboi). Only a few minutes in and he's already relating everything to the theory of the four humours in a way I hadn't heard of before. Don't know if I recommend it as such, but the audience can probably select themselves ^^
Edit: jeepers, it's really dense with facts - really nice to see lots of examples of medieval food-logic worked through.
Many Hindus, Hare Krishnas, Jains etc also are told to refrain from Garlic for the same reason, that if you want to go on the path of spirituality, it puts your nervous system into overdrive and can make you angry, tense and sexually avid too
That's interesting because garlic noticeably lowers your blood pressure, so it should make you more relaxed. Also, nobody will want to come near you because you have garlic breath, which seems like a sexual obstacle.
In the pre-modern-dentistry world, the mouth was a very different place to the modern one...I feel like garlic-breath would've been the least of one's worries...
Edit: jeepers, it's really dense with facts - really nice to see lots of examples of medieval food-logic worked through.