Garlic! The whole purpose of asafoetida was to give a garlic flavor without the negative GI effects of garlic; certain Indian subgroups avoid garlic, onions, and other alliums (something to do with them interfering with meditation, I believe).
Since I can’t digest garlic, I often use asafoetida as a sub the other way round.
Since several hours have passed since your post, what did you end up doing?
The explanation I read was that the use of onions and their allies was associated with cooking meat and this offended some strongly vegetarian people- I wouldn't care to try to prove this. It also had some currency in Europe at one point but more, I believe, as a medicine.
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Since I can’t digest garlic, I often use asafoetida as a sub the other way round.
Since several hours have passed since your post, what did you end up doing?
I just left it out. There’s quite a bit of garlic in the recipe already, so maybe it wasn’t needed to begin with!