4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 12 August 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
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Forget oysters, have you tried eating sparrows with a side of phallic vegetables to stir your lust?!
Getting in the mood isn’t just a modern preoccupation, but the reasons behind it have definitely changed throughout the centuries.
What aphrodisiacs were people using in the Early Modern period? Who were the authorities on this? And how was witch craft involved?!
Joining Kate today is author and historian Dr. Jennifer Evans to help us find out.
This episode was edited by Tom Delargy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.
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Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.
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0:00.0 | Have you ever listened to an episode of Betwixt the Sheets and found yourself shouting out, |
0:05.1 | wanting to interject or ask a question? |
0:07.8 | Well, I know I have, but I'm actually there in real life. |
0:10.3 | But now you can be too, because for the first time ever, you can watch Betwixt live. |
0:18.3 | This September the 4th at the London Podcast Festival. More details will be revealed very soon, |
0:25.2 | but go and mark September 4th off in your diary right now, and I promise you there will be |
0:30.1 | everything that you have come to know, love and expect from betwixt. History, laughs, silliness and |
0:35.4 | swearing. And of course, we will make sure that there is an |
0:38.4 | incredible guest that you all know and love. For more information, follow the link in the show notes |
0:42.9 | and get your ticket before they're gone. And apparently they are going quite fast as well. |
0:47.5 | So get on with it, betwixters. Go, go, go. I can't wait to see you there. |
0:53.9 | On August 29th, Olivia Coleman and Benedict Cumberbatch are The Roses. How's married life? We're fine. It's fine. Wow, that bad, huh? It's an unromantic comedy for anyone who's ever found love. For you, I do anything. I do believe that's true. And then completely lost it. I sense trouble. We both said things we didn't mean. I met them. We met them too. Don't miss. You don't care if I'm dead. Ivy! The roses. Things are getting a little out of hand. Oh, you think? In cinema's August 29th. Hello, my lovely betwixtus. It's me, C Lister, and you are you, and I am me, and this is Betwix the Sheets. And before I can let you listen to this, I have to tell you, in all seriousness, this is an adult podcast. Spoken by adults to other adults about adultery things in an adulty way covering arranged or other subjects, and you should be an adult too. And if you can't tick all of those boxes, fuck off. |
1:49.1 | Don't want you around here holding everybody else up, getting overly sensitive and making everyone cry. Have they gone? Right, okay, fabulous. On with the show. |
1:58.3 | Why, thank you for joining me in the kitchen as I rustle up an aphrodisiac, 17th century style. |
2:04.2 | Yeah, there's no popping down the petrol station for Viagra now. |
2:08.1 | You can forget your oysters and your strawberries dipped in chocolate as well, |
2:11.6 | because we have got, let me just consult John Gerrard's, |
2:15.3 | a general history of plants from 1597. |
2:18.5 | Rockets. Not the one that goes up to the sky, the kind of letticey one. We've got some garlic |
2:23.1 | and some onions to quote unquote, increase seed and provoke lust. Really? Okay, all right, |
2:30.9 | 16th century, you do you. Well, what else have they got? |
2:34.9 | Sparrows, writes, Sparrows, why wouldn't they have sparrows? |
... |
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