The Strange Flavour of Parthian Chicken from Ancient Rome - (a nice channel that combines history and cooking, and in this case, he is trying a Roman recipe that uses what he calls a strange, smelly ingredient from Parthia - Asafoetida)
There's a fascinating story of a Roman-era spice called Sylphium which became extinct as a result of overharvesting, & the Romans were so obsessed with it that some creative black marketers were able to pass off a funky resin from what is today Afghanistan/Iran as the real thing
And that's how Parthian Chicken came to be. And our host, after declaring asafoetida to smell like a dead cat in his dorm room in the Arizona heat, eventually realizes that its sulphurous savouriness is quite magical even in small quantities
And #TIL that the Parthians (ancient Persians) had this special skill in battle where retreating archers would all turn back while riding forward and shoot arrows at the enemy, thus the origin of the phrase Parthian shot, which became Parting shot.
Also, India is the largest consumer of Asafoetida in the world and all of it comes from Afghanistan/Iran. It is theorized that its popularity comes from it becoming a replacement for onions and garlic in Jain and upper-caste Hindu households
Fun fact: Dimethyl trisulphide and Diallyl disulphide, two of the sulphurous molecules that lend asafoetida its characteristic odour ARE PRESENT IN GARLIC AND ONIONS. So much for the relevance of religious food proscriptions 😛
Back to the Roman dish though, fermented fish sauce and asafoetida sound like an amazing umamibomb combination, worth trying out.
