🌿 1. Traditional home remedy (folk medicine)
In many households, an onion studded with cloves was believed to:
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Help purify the air
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Reduce unpleasant odors
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Offer gentle protection during colds or flu season
People believed onions could absorb “bad air,” and cloves were added for their strong, pleasant scent and symbolic protective qualities. This belief comes from a time before modern medicine, when families relied on what they had at home.
🌬️ 2. Natural air freshener
Cloves have a warm, spicy smell, and onions are strong-smelling too.
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Together, they were used to mask bad odors in kitchens or sickrooms
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It was a simple, natural alternative to chemical fragrances
🧿 3. Cultural or symbolic meaning
In some traditions, onions and cloves were thought to:
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Ward off illness or “negative energy”
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Protect the household, especially when someone was unwell
Even when not scientifically proven, these practices were deeply rooted in care, comfort, and tradition.
🍽️ 4. Culinary use (less common, but possible)
Sometimes cloves are stuck into onions (called oignon piqué in French cooking) to:
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Flavor soups, broths, or stews gently
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Make the cloves easy to remove later
In short
Your grandmother wasn’t being strange—she was likely following a time-honored household practice meant to care for the home and family with the tools she trusted.
If you’d like, tell me where she kept it (kitchen, bedroom, near someone who was sick), and I can narrow down which reason was most likely in her case.
