food help

[kengr]

I've got a friend with IBS. Sghe has so far discovered that she can't have anything spicy, can't have diary, and can't have anything in the onion/garlic familiy or the family that includes bell peppers and stuff like jalsapenos.

She needs suggestions for stuff she can get or make cheap. And given the way she reacts to the current hot spell, minimal cooking is good.

Comments

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Asafoetida? My only awareness of asafoetida is from one of my books on paganism. Burning asafoetida is used to get rid of ghosts and other spirits, but it's like the nuclear bomb of spirit-repellents, and should only be used in major hauntings, because it stinks so bad.

[kengr]

I once checked out a translation of a Roman cookbook from the library. A few recipes called for the very expensive (and now extinct) spice siphilum(sp).

The cookbook had a cheat for doing them cheaper. You placed some pine nuts in a sealed container with some asafoetida for a while, and then you ground up the pine buts and used them instead of the siphilum.

I think I've run across a few other references to it in folk medicine and ethnic cooking, but can't recall any.