A spice nicknamed devil's dung hides inside every bottle of Worcestershire sauce
Asafoetida smells so pungent that popular speech called it devil's dung, and the Latin fetid in its name means stinking. Yet Indian and Middle Eastern cooks prize it as a stand-in for garlic and onion, and it quietly flavours Worcestershire sauce. It is dried sap from the roots of perennial carrot-family herbs.
The resin oozes from the taproot, and sometimes the rhizome or stem, of several Ferula species, chiefly Ferula assa-foetida, Ferula foetida and Ferula narthex, whose classification botanists still argue over. Iran and Afghanistan have long been the main producers, shipping most of it raw to India for processing, packing and partial re-export. Since 2020 India has tried growing its own, notably in Himachal Pradesh, to meet rising demand.
Raw asafoetida is odd stuff. Its broken surface is milky and pearly, and within hours of meeting light and air it can blush violet-red before fading to yellowish brown over days or weeks. It burns with a white flame and heavy smoke, tastes acrid and bitter, and owes its onion-like reek to sulphur compounds. The purest commercial form is tears, grains about 5 to 30 mm across; lump and paste forms often contain root fragments and soil.
Indian traders grade it carefully. Hing is the finer, paler, more aromatic kind and dissolves in water, while darker Hingra dissolves in oil and is what Europe usually sees. Irani Hing takes its old name from shipments through Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, and Afghan resin, called Pathani or Kandaharee Hing, tends to be moister and more bitter. A rare grade shaped like angular stones may be adulterated with gypsum.
The name's origin is debated. A favoured theory links the Latin asa to silphium, the prized and now extinct plant of the ancient Mediterranean, through a chain of sound changes starting from laserpicium. Greeks and Romans knew the resin, and it appears in Ayurvedic writings, Arab and Persian medicine, medieval herbals and Chinese traditional texts. Research has reported biological activity from its compounds, and it also serves as a perfume fixative and a natural pesticide.
Source: Asafoetida
