Asafoetida or asafetida is the dried latex exuded from the rhizome or tap root of several
species of Ferula, a perennial herb that grows 1 to 1.5 m tall. The species is native to
the deserts of Iran, mountains of Afghanistan, and is mainly cultivated in nearby India.
As its name suggests, asafoetida has a fetid smell but in cooked dishes it delivers a smooth
flavor reminiscent of leeks. It is also known as asant, food of the gods,
giant fennel, jowani badian, stinking gum, Devil's dung, hing, kayam and ting.
Uses Cooking
This spice is used as a digestive aid, in food as a condiment, and in pickles. It typically
works as a flavor enhancer and, used along with turmeric, is a standard component of
Indian cuisine, particularly in lentil curries, such as dal, or various 'Pappu' like dosakaya,
or tomato pappu, mamidikaya in Telugu, called Mavinakayi in Kannada. as well as in numerous
vegetable dishes. It is especially widely used in South Indian and Maharashtrian cuisine,
which is mainly vegetarian, and is often used to harmonize sweet, sour, salty and spicy
components in food. It is used to hallmark the taste of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala
and Tamil Nadu sambar, a saucy dish made with cereals and lentils. The spice is added to
the food at the time of Chaunk / Popu/ tadka. Sometimes dried and ground asafoetida can
be mixed with salt and eaten with raw salad. In its pure form, its odour is so strong the
aroma will contaminate other spices stored nearby if it is not stored in an airtight
container: many commercial preparations of asafoetida utilize the resin ground up and
mixed with a larger volume of wheat flour: the mixture is sold in sealed plastic containers
with a small hole at the bottom, allowing the diluted spice to be dusted lightly over
the food being cooked. However, its odour and flavour become much milder and more pleasant
upon heating in oil or ghee, acquiring a taste and aroma reminiscent of sautéed onion and
garlic. It is used especially by the merchant caste of the Hindus and by adherents of Jainism
and Vaishnavism, particularly in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra, who do not eat onions
or garlic. It is used in many vegetarian and lentil dishes to add both flavor and aroma
as well as to reduce flatulence. It is however one of the pungent vegetables generally avoided
by Buddhist vegetarians. Medical applications
Antiflatulent. Asafoetida reduces the growth of indigenous microflora in the gut, reducing
flatulence. In the Jammu region of India, asafoetida is used as a medicine for flatulence
and constipation by 60% of locals. A digestion aid. In Thailand and India, it
is used to aid digestion and is smeared on the abdomen in an alcohol or water tincture
known as mahahing. Assafoetida in this tincture form was evidently used in western medicine
as a topical treatment for abdominal injuries during the 18th and 19th centuries, although
when it came into use in the West and how long it remained in use is uncertain. One
notable case in which it was used is that of Canadian Coureur des bois Alexis St. Martin,
who in 1822 suffered a severe abdominal injury from an accidental shooting that perforated
his right lung and stomach and shattered several ribs. St Martin was treated by American army
surgeon William Beaumont, who subsequently used St Martin as the subject of a pioneering
series of experiments in gastric physiology, thanks to the fact that when St Martin's wounds
fully healed, it left an open fistula into the stomach that enabled Beaumont to insert
various types of food directly into St Martin's stomach and record the results. In his account
of his treatment of and later experiments on St Martin, Beaumont recorded that he treated
the suppurating chest wound with a combination of wine mixed with diluted muriatic acid and
30-40 drops of tincture of asafoetida applied three times a day, and that this appeared
to have the desired effect, helping the wound to heal.
Fighting influenza: Asafoetida was used in 1918 to fight the Spanish influenza pandemic.
In 2009, researchers reported that the roots of Asafoetida produce natural antiviral drug
compounds that demonstrated potency against the H1N1 virus in vitro and concluded that
"sesquiterpene coumarins from F. assa-foetida may serve as promising lead compounds for
new drug development against influenza A viral infection".
Remedy for asthma and bronchitis. It is also said to be helpful in cases of asthma and
bronchitis. A folk tradition remedy for children's colds: it is mixed into a pungent-smelling
paste and hung in a bag around the afflicted child's neck.
An antimicrobial: Asafoetida has a broad range of uses in traditional medicine as an antimicrobial,
with well documented uses for treating chronic bronchitis and whooping cough, as well as
reducing flatulence. A contraceptive/abortifacient: Asafoetida
has also been reported to have contraceptive/abortifacient activity,. It is related to the ancient Ferula
species Silphium. Antiepileptic: Asafoetida oleo-gum-resin has
been reported to be antiepileptic in classical Unani, as well as ethnobotanical literature.
Balancing the vata and kapha. In India according to the Ayurveda, asafoetida is considered
to be one of the best spices for balancing the vata dosha. It mitigates vata and kapha,
relieves flatulence and colic pain. It is pungent in taste and at the end of digestion.
It aggravates pitta, enhances appetite, taste and digestion. It is easy to digest..
Antidote for opium. Asafoetida has only been speculated to be an antidote for opium.
Other uses Bait: John C Duval reported in 1936 that the
odor of asafoetida is attractive to the wolf, a matter of common knowledge, he says, along
the Texas/Mexico border. It is also used as one of several possible scent baits, most
notably for catfish and pike. May also be used as a moth light trap attractant
by collectors—when mixed by approximately 1 part to 3 parts with a sweet, fruit jelly.
Repelling spirits: In Jamaica, asafoetida is traditionally applied to a baby's anterior
fontanel to prevent spirits from entering the baby through the fontanel. In the African-American
Hoodoo tradition, asafoetida is used in magic spells, as it is believed to have the power
both to protect and to curse. In ceremonial magick, especially from The
Key of Solomon the King, it is used to protect the magus from daemonic forces and to evoke
the same and bind them. History in the West
It was familiar in the early Mediterranean, having come by land across Iran. Though it
is generally forgotten now in Europe, it is still widely used in India. It emerged into
Europe from a conquering expedition of Alexander the Great, who, after returning from a trip
to northeastern Persia, thought they had found a plant almost identical to the famed silphium
of Cyrene in North Africa—though less tasty. Dioscorides, in the first century, wrote,
"the Cyrenaic kind, even if one just tastes it, at once arouses a humour throughout the
body and has a very healthy aroma, so that it is not noticed on the breath, or only a
little; but the Median [Iranian] is weaker in power and has a nastier smell." Nevertheless,
it could be substituted for silphium in cooking, which was fortunate, because a few decades
after Dioscorides's time, the true silphium of Cyrene became extinct, and asafoetida became
more popular amongst physicians, as well as cooks.
Asafoetida is also mentioned multiple times in Jewish literature, such as the Mishnah.
Maimonides also writes in the Mishneh Torah "In the rainy season, one should eat warm
food with much spice, but a limited amount of mustard and asafoetida."
Asafoetida was described by a number of Arab and Islamic scientists and pharmacists. Avicenna
discussed the effects of asafoetida on digestion. Ibn al-Baitar and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi described
some positive medicinal affects of it on the respiratory system.
After the Roman Empire fell, until the 16th century, asafoetida was rare in Europe, and
if ever encountered, it was viewed as a medicine. "If used in cookery, it would ruin every dish
because of its dreadful smell," asserted Garcia de Orta's European guest. Nonsense, Garcia
replied, "nothing is more widely used in every part of India, both in medicine and in cookery.
All the Hindus who can afford it buy it to add to their food."
Cultivation and manufacture The resin-like gum comes from the dried sap
extracted from the stem and roots and is used as a spice. The resin is greyish-white when
fresh but dries to a dark amber color. The asafoetida resin is difficult to grate and
is traditionally crushed between stones or with a hammer. Today, the most commonly available
form is compounded asafoetida, a fine powder containing 30% asafoetida resin, along with
rice flour and gum arabic. Ferula assafoetida is a monoecious, herbaceous,
perennial plant of the family Umbelliferae, also called Apiaceae. It grows to 2 meters
high, with a circular mass of 30–40 cm leaves. Stem leaves have wide sheathing petioles.
Flowering stems are 2.5–3 meters high and 10 cm thick and hollow, with a number of
schizogenous ducts in the cortex containing the resinous gum. Flowers are pale greenish
yellow produced in large compound umbels. Fruits are oval, flat, thin, reddish brown
and have a milky juice. Roots are thick, massive, and pulpy. They yield a resin similar to that
of the stems. All parts of the plant have the distinctive fetid smell.
Composition Typical asafoetida contains about 40–64%
resin, 25% endogeneous gum, 10–17% volatile oil, and 1.5–10% ash. The resin portion
is known to contain asaresinotannols 'A' and 'B', ferulic acid, umbelliferone and four
unidentified compounds. Etymology
The English name is derived from asa, a Latinized form of Farsi azā, meaning "resin", and Latin
foetidus meaning "smelling, fetid", which refers to its strong sulfurous odour. It is
called हींग "(hïng)" in Hindi, ಇಂಗು in Kannada, ఇంగువ in Telugu and
பெருங்காயம் in Tamil. Its pungent odour has resulted in it being
known by many unpleasant names; In French it is known as merde du Diable, meaning "Devil's
faeces", in English it is sometimes called Devil's dung, and equivalent names can be
found in most Germanic languages. Also, in Finnish it is called pirunpaska or pirunpihka,
and in Turkish it is known as Şeytan tersi, Şeytan boku or Şeytan otu.
In popular culture Penrod, an 11-year-old boy in a 1929 Booth
Tarkington story set in the midwestern United States, suffers intensely for being forced
to wear a bag of asafoetida on his neck and encounters a girl in the same condition.
In the "Tooth or Consequences" episode of the comedy TV series Sanford and Son, Fred
Sanford wears an asafoetida bag to get rid of a bad toothache.
In the movie El Dorado, asafoetida was a component of a hangover remedy that was introduced by
James Caan's character "Mississippi". In the "Snidely's Sawmill" episode of Dudley
Do-Right, villain Snidely Whiplash tells Nell Fenwick preparatory to her being tied to a
log that "Because, Miss Fenwick, beneath this black exterior there lies a mustard plaster
and over the mustard plaster lies an asafoetida bag. On it, imprinted in pica are the words,
"Whippy Loves Nelly!"" In the "Incident at Red River Station", Season
2, Episode 13 of Rawhide, townspeople wear an asafoetida bag to ward off smallpox.
In the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa area of Pakistan, people hang a small bag of asafoetida around
the neck or tie it around the arm to keep safe from seasonal, bacterial and viral illnesses,
the efficacy of which might have more to do with repelling potentially infected people
rather than the disease-causing organisms themselves.
In Robertson Davies's novel, Fifth Business, the barber Milo and his father hung bags of
asafoetida around their necks to fight the Spanish flu.
In Sinclair Lewis' novel Arrowsmith the protagonist smells asafoetida as part of a fraternity
initiation. In Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World,
'beta' children are given a whiff of asafoetida, accompanied by descriptions of 'deltas' as
being undesirable to play with, during 'sleep conditioning,' in order to condition them
to play only with members of their caste. In "To Kill A Mockingbird", Scout describes
the clean smells of the attendees at the First Purchase African M.E. Church, saying there
was "Hearts of Love hairdressing mingled with asafoetida, snuff, Hoyt's Cologne, Brown's
Mule, peppermint, and lilac talcum". In Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye," Aunt
Jimmy raises Cholly Breedlove after his mother abandons him. He is grateful for Aunt Jimmy's
kindness except when "she wore the Asafetida bag around her neck".
See also Ammoniacum
Chaat masala South Asian pickle
Surströmming – another food noted for its highly fetid smell
References
External links