Honey for your honey: celebrate Valentine's Day with recipes that feature nature's sweetest food--honey.(EAT SMART: FOOD)

"Honey, I'm home!"

That refrain has undoubtedly been heard in domestic dwellings since ancient times. In modern times, it has been immortalized on-screen in sitcoms and tweaked in movies such as Pleasantville. This golden liquid, created and stored by some of the smallest and most industrious members of the natural kingdom, has come to stand for all that is sweet and desirable in the world. As a foodstuff, beauty treatment, medicine, and metaphor, its value is pervasive throughout centuries and cultures.

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Honey in History

Apiculture, or bee-keeping, has been shown to date back at least to 700 BC, but humankind's desire for the bee's precious nectar goes back much further than that--a 10,000-year-old rock painting in Spain depicts two women on a ladder collecting honey from a wild nest. As far back as 2100 BC, honey was mentioned in the sacred writings of Egypt and India; in the Old Testament, the promised land is described as "the land of milk and honey." And honey's reported uses in many cultures were varied and sometimes a little scary. In the Roman Empire, honey was used to pay taxes; in Greece, a bride blessed herself with honey-dipped fingers to ensure amity with her new mother-in-law; and in the Ottoman Empire, the head of Vlad Tepes, the original Dracula, was preserved in ajar of honey!

Honey is found as well in the rituals and literature of many religions, including Buddhism and Islam. And mythological rumor has it that Cupid dipped the tips of his "love arrows" in honey before sending them flying toward his unsuspecting but soon-to-be-enamored victims.

Healthy Honey