All About Sassafras

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Posted by @Sharon on
Do you like gumbo? How about hot tea? There's nothing better on a cold winter day than hot soups and hot drinks. How does sassafras enter into the picture? Climb up the mountain with Aunt Bett and me and we'll tell you.

I watched her as she knelt beside the little sapling.  The ground was wet and cold and in some places I could see thin slivers of ice on the fallen leaves.  She didn’t say a word, she was quiet as the mountains around us; she simply started loosening the soil around the sapling’s roots.

I stood there shivering in the wind up on that mountain, a damp wind that whipped loose curls into my mouth and across my eyes.  In my hand I held the faded blue ribbon that had marked the little sassafras tree.

We’d marked it back in the fall when its leaves were turning from dark green to red to orange and finally to yellow before they fell.

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“How do you know that’s a sassyfras tree, Aunt Bett? How can you tell?” I’d asked on that warm autumn day.

“You look for leaves the shape of mittens,” she said. “And sometimes they be three fingers, sometimes only one, but mostly you’ll see mittens.  That’s how you’ll know.”

I remember its scent, seems like even the branches smelled a little like cinnamon, a lot like root beer, and my mouth watered to taste it.  I knew to wait for her to say the word; I never tasted any of the plants until she told me they were safe. 

And on that fall day when I was not more than six or seven, she introduced me to the taste of a sassafras twig.  That was the day we took one of my old blue hair ribbons and tied it to a small sapling that grew very near the big tree. Its roots were to be gathered when it was dormant during winter, before the ground froze, but after its leaves fell.

I might have asked a million questions that fall day, as I chewed on the sassafras twig, and she answered every one of them. But on the cold December day, we were both very quiet as she dug down to loosen the roots of the sapling.  The spicy scent began to fill the cold air. It was so quiet I knew what was coming, it was her turn to ask questions testing my memory of what she'd taught me.

“You remember what I told you?” her breath like clouds forming each word. It was so cold.

“I reckon so, Aunt Bett.”

“Then tell me,” she said, more words, more clouds, more digging around the roots.

I wondered if my words would make clouds, too.

“Your Indyun Gramma made tea from the sassyfras roots to kill fevers and purify blood.”  My words stumbled all over themselves they were in such a hurry, and they made very big clouds.  I was so proud of the clouds.

“That’s right,” she said. “But remember to gather the roots from the little trees. There’ll always be plenty of little ones growing near the big tree. We don’t want to hurt the mother tree, we’ll leave her alone so she’ll keep growing little ones. That way we won’t never run out of roots.”

She continued to dig until she loosened the roots of the sapling.  I continued to shiver in the cold, spicy-scented winter mist.

“Roots must be gathered when the tree is sleeping, that’s why we gather'em in the wintertime.” Her words again made big clouds and I was too cold to open my mouth, but not too cold to memorize what she was saying.

I remember watching her shake the dirt from the sapling’s roots, long roots that connected it to the mother tree growing nearby.  It never occurred to me to ask why she chose only one sapling out of the dozens that grew upon that mountain.  I already knew she only took what she needed from nature, never more, never less. She only needed one sassafras sapling.  It provided all the roots she needed for teas that lasted through the following year.

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Sassafras albidum is a native of eastern North America. It’s an aromatic deciduous tree averaging about 10 to 40 feet tall with a rough gray bark. It has greenish yellow flowers that appear before the leaves in April and May, and are followed by pea sized fruits.  The fruits feed some wildlife.

During the establishment of the Virginia Colony, in the seventeenth century, sassafras was a major export commodity to England. A medicinal root and a wood prized for its beauty and long lasting durability, sassafras was popular from its first import by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1602 until the eighteenth century. During a brief period in the early seventeenth century the popular sassafras was the second largest export from America behind tobacco.  Throughout history sassafras wood has been found to be an excellent fire-starter because of the flammability of its natural oils found within the wood and the leaves.  Its flame was sometimes used in the rituals and rites of our Native Americans.

Sassafras root bark was long considered a virtual cure all, but today it’s most often considered a diuretic.  When the Spanish arrived in Florida in the early 16th century, they mistook the fragrant sassafras for a cinnamon tree. The local Native Americans used the bark of its roots to treat fevers and rheumatism, and as a general tonic and blood purifier.   With its exportation, the Europeans also discovered sassafras tea and it soon became a fashionable beverage there as well as here in our country.

An oil extracted from the tree remained in use as an antiseptic for dentistry and as a flavoring for toothpaste, root beer and chewing gum until the early 1960s. I think I will always associate the taste with a visit to the dentist. The flavor almost took the fear of the dentist away. But in the early 1960s the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared that the chemical compound safrole, found in the oil of the root bark, was a potential carcinogen and the tea and flavoring were banned. The ban lasted until the passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act in 1994. Sassafras root extracts which do not contain safrole or in which the safrole has been removed are permissible now, and are still widely used commercially in teas and root beers.  Some herbalists still use sassafras tea as an anticoagulant as well.

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Wikipedia tells us: Sassafras leaves and twigs are consumed by white-tailed deer in both summer and winter. In some areas it is an important deer food. Sassafras leaf browsers include groundhogs, Marsh Rabbits and American Black Bears.   Rabbits eat sassafras bark in winter. American Beavers will cut sassafras stems. Sassafras fruits are eaten by many species of birds including Bobwhite Quail, Eastern Kingbirds, Great Crested Flycatchers, Phoebes, Wild Turkeys, Gray Catbirds, Northern Flickers, Pileated Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, thrushes, vireos, and Northern Mockingbirds.  Some small mammals also consume sassafras fruits.  S. albidum is a host plant for the Spicebush Swallowtail.

Finally Aunt Bett had enough root from the sapling and we started back down the mountain. It was slow going, the leaves on the ground were wet and slick and the windy mist made it difficult to keep my eyes open.  I carried the burlap sack that held the sassafras roots as if it were filled with gold; I knew it was that precious to Aunt Bett. In my mouth, I chewed a cold sassafras twig. My free hand held onto trees so I didn't slide all the way home.

We made it safely to Aunt Bett’s house, and after washing the mud off the roots we’d gathered, she cut them with a sharp paring knife to get thin slices. Sometimes she used fresh slices for tea, and on that day we sipped a cup of hot sassafras tea to warm us from the inside out, she said.  The rest of the slices of sassafras root were placed on a wooden board to dry out of the direct sun.  Once dry, they were kept in a jar on a shelf in her kitchen. I remember she told me to slice the roots lengthwise, the larger surface area of the thin slices meant it didn’t take much to make a batch of tea.  It is much easier to chop the root while it’s still fresh rather than waiting until after it’s dry when it becomes too hard to slice.  The longer you boil the roots, the stronger the tea.

So Aunt Bett’s hot sassafras tea warmed us from the inside out, and she declared that day’s work well done.  I lived a little way on up the holler that went past her house, so after warming my insides with the tea, I made my way home. I remember saying words out loud as I walked up the holler; big words like ‘sassafras’ and ‘mitten leaves’ and ‘dried sassafras roots’ created big white clouds in front of my face.  Saying them out loud also helped me to remember what she taught me. 

I thought a lot about what I’d learned that day, stomping my cold feet to the rhythm of the words that puffed out of my mouth in a white misty cloud.  Sassafras tea tasted a lot like root beer and its color was nearly red.  I wondered if I could use it as a dye. I was really into dying pieces of scrap muslin that were left over from Ninna’s quilts. 

I think digging the roots in the winter was necessary because the sap was down then.  And I suspect since the young plants come from the suckers of the mother tree and tend to spread like wildfire, it’s a good idea to use those young roots instead of just tossing them to get rid of too many trees. She taught me to use everything that was usable in a plant.  Anything left over went into a compost pile in her garden.

The US Food and Drug administration has now determined that without safrole the commercial sassafras products are usable. They have also determined that one would have to drink a gallon of the self made sassafras root tea every day in order to get enough safrole to cause cancer. I don’t worry too much about it since I don’t have the roots available that often. And as for chewing on a twig, well, I don’t do that very often either. It’s a little like chewing a tooth pick, better done only in the privacy of one’s own company.

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I do however make gumbo occasionally, and when I do I remember that the dried and ground leaves of sassafras are used to make filé powder, an ingredient used in most types of gumbo.

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  Drying sassafras leaves

It’s December now, and if Aunt Bett were still here, you’d find us on top of a mountain somewhere in east Kentucky, digging up a young sassafras sapling. Just watch for the word clouds, and listen to the words. She rarely said anything that wasn’t important.

~~~

 

Additional verification source: Reader's Digest, 1986: The Magic and Medicine of Plants

First and last images are courtesy of Chelle and the fourth is courtesy of Dave, those images appear in ATP's Plant Database. The two remaining images are sourced by browsing over them.

 
Comments and Discussion
Thread Title Last Reply Replies
Sassafras & Mayhaw by Tink Sep 8, 2016 9:14 PM 5
Aunt Bett & Sassyfrass by TBGDN Nov 4, 2013 8:52 PM 1
loved it by Onewish1 Feb 21, 2013 7:55 AM 37
Sassyfrass by Audrey Jan 1, 2012 6:46 PM 4
sassafras vs. brewed beer by Lance Dec 12, 2011 12:39 PM 3

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