In this brief review of Isabelle Allende's Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses, Leslie Chess Feller summarizes Allende's non-fictional exploration of the world of sensual experience using food as an erotic catalyst.

If this is just a cookbook, then Allende's novels are just potboilers! From the author of such incomparable novels as House of the Spirits (1985) and the highly evocative collection Stories of Eva Luna (1991) comes a luscious book about aphrodisiacs— the bridge between gluttony and lust. To care less about food preparation with seduction in mind would not prohibit any appreciator of beautiful writing from thoroughly enjoying this extraordinarily seductive book. Yes, Allende does provide recipes, and many of them may spark chemistry between two individuals. But more important than the recipes are her historical and biological ruminations on the inseparability of food and eroticism. With her "sole focus [being] on the sensual art of food...