Children in the twenties, thirties, and forties were looking kelt to have to wear asfoetida bags around their necks to ward off illness. The foul-smelling asfoetida was likely to placed in a discarded tobacco bag like the one pictured above.
I found near this article about asfoetida on OurValley.org
Monday, January 14, 2013
Maybe it’s time for asafeotida bags
By Meg Hibbert
Maybe it’s time to break out the asafeotida bags to ward off the flu.
Doctors, hospitals and medical personnel all over – especially in Virginia – are saying this week that the flu epidemic right now is huge. The word is that local hospitals are getting overloaded with flu cases. Staff on Tuesday said Richfield Retirement Center’s residents in the Recovery and Care Center are quarantined to their rooms and residential floors, instead of being allowed to go to the cafeteria.
Maybe we should all try wearing asafetida bags.
Unless you grew up in the 1940s, 1950s and were raised in the rural South, you might not ever have heard of asafetida or asafoetida, which as a kid, I thought was probably spelled assafettidy.
When I was little, I remember a few country kids in Tifton, Ga., coming to school with little cloth bags of onion-smelling gunky stuff on string around their necks. Asafetida was supposed either supposed to cure you of colds and other sickness, or to keep germs away.
It kept the rest of us away, that’s for sure.
According to my quick research yesterday, some people thought asafetida would keep away flu, or even polio. After the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic that killed almost 100 million people, according to the book “Healing Spices,” pharmacies used to sell “asafidity” and “asafidity bags.”
Internet research says asafetida is a bitter, gummy resin made of a fennel-type of plant that is native to the Middle East and similar parts of the world. The name is derived from “asa gum” and the Latin word “foetidus” for evil-smelling.
I do remember the stuff smelled really bad.
The “Davesgarden.com” site has a posting by Bev Walker who says scientists took a new look at asafetida, and found it had antiviral properties.
In addition to the herb powder, asafetida was frequently mixed with garlic, onions and other herbs people believed had healing qualities.
I didn’t have a granny who made us wear I had an asafetida bag so I’m certainly no expert. I do remember finding a lacy metal open-work locket that still had some of the dark-brown, gummy stuff dried in it. I thought that was terrific. I wonder what ever happened to it in my childhood treasures.
Anyway, today’s medical experts are encouraging us to get a flu shot if you haven’t already had one, eat healthy, get lots of rest, wash your hands frequently and stay away from sick people.
Since I can’t take flu shots because I was allergic to eggs when I was a baby and flu vaccine is grown on eggs, I usually take my chances with flu. Knock on wood, I’ve only had it twice in the last 13 years. Maybe I’ll just start wearing a couple of cloves of garlic around my neck, instead.
Editor’s note: Since I published this in the printed edition of the Salem Times-Register on Jan. 10, reader Frank Munley sent an article from “Saudi Aramco World” about asafoetida, also known as “Devil’s Dung,” which it called the world’s smelliest spice. Supposedly asafoetida resin – which the article says comes from Ferula assafoetida, a relative of carrol and fennel plants (wonder if it’s related to Queen Anne’s Lace, too?) dropped into olive oil to sauté gives a rich, savory scent similar to sauteéd onions. It is used in pickled dishes and in the West, is an ingredient in Worcestershire sauce. Who knew?
Tags: Afghanistan, asafetida, asafoetida, asafoetida bags, epidemic, fennel, flu, herb, influenza, Kashmir
This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2013 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Cookin’, Critters and Chillun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
I enjoyed reading your post! I just started my blog about 2 weeks ago and don’t have any followers. Can you help me?
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Headed there now.
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It may have worked. I doubt any self-respecting germ wanted to get too close.
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They have standards, too!
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That’s right. 🙂
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I hope no one takes any Queen Anne’s Lace internally as it’s poisonous. My mother remembered asafoetida bags when she was a child in the early 1900’s. It probably kept the flu, etc. away by keeping other people away from you. Maybe that was a good idea. 😀 — Suzanne
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Good birth control, too. Didn’t have to say no.
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Ha, Ha. That would work also. 😀 — Suzanne
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It’s used in Indian dishes here, but it comes in a powder and a tiny pinch is added to dishes. Mixed with all the other ingredients, it’s not very strong. It’s called Hing in Indian recipes. You can no doubt buy it in Indian stores in the U.S. 🙂 — Suzanne
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Some nods like caution would be the operative word.
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Believe it or not I have a jar of assafoetida in my spice cupboard. It is used in curries and Indian dishes. However, I have never been able to bring myself to use it once I opened it up and was hit by the smell!! Now I know what else to do with it 🙂 Maybe the germs run away screaming because they can’t stand the smell.
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Give it a shot.
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I’ll have to steel myself – or perhaps wear a mask!
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Maybe both
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🙂
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Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
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Thanks for the Reblog.
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With the knowledge of today it is sometimes so strange to see what was the conviction not so long back!
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I guess you did what you could.
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Very true. Stunning how far we have already come!
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If I could wear something to scare off particular people, I might make that investment!
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It’s still available.
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And that vintage label of an importer in Madras – interesting!
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I liked that one.
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dont know about keeping off cold. we use it in indian cooking and relish it.
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How much do you add to a dish?
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Just a pinch if in powder form.
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Never heard of it and it sure doesn’t sound fabulous 😄
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That was such an interesting article! I love Worcester sauce too!
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I loved it. I love Worcestester sauce, too.
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Never heard of asfoetida, until you wrote about it. And I’ll pass on the experience–castor oil and cod liver oil were bad enough.
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Did you ever get dosed with sulphur and molasses?
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No, I’ve heard of it, but never had the pleasure. I think my father was dosed with that along with sassafras tea–spring tonic, if you will. This did bring back memories of another childhood unpleasantry–salt water enemas.
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Daddy brought sulphur from the Feed Store to give his livestock a good worming and combat fleas, ticks, horseflies and mosquitos. He had Mother mix it in sorghum molasses and dose us. It made you gag going down and we stunk to high heaven. It was even worse coming out. I guess he and Mother weren’t bothered by vermin since they saved it all for us. Mother dosed us with Groves Chill Tonic in the Spring. She also dosed us again if we scratched bug bites and got sores. It was hideous. It was black, sickening sweet, had something that looked like coconut in it and was loaded with quinine. If we threw it up, we got another dose.
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We doctored our hogs and cattle, but never got the same medicine. I helped dad give the pigs shots for pneumonia and hog cholera. The male pigs got castrated–had to help do that, too. Thank goodness that didn’t carry over.
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Luckily for us, Daddy thought as much of us as he did his livestock. Hah!
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Very interesting! I had never heard of it.
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I always heard of asfoetida bags.
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Must be a southern thing. 😀
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May be.
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