love to read all your happenings .. always!!!

Thanks Allison!
This one was pretty close to my heart. It's the only favorite tree from my childhood that I don't have growing anywhere near me. So . . . I have my brother on a search for a sassafras seedling. Reckon I'll be around long enough for it to grow??

you know it!!!

I loved learning about sassafras. And as always the story.

Thanks, Anni

Loved your story! You do have a way with words, ma'am. I had gumbo for lunch today! No file, tho. Just chicken/sausage gumbo today. I have to make it and freeze it in small batches. A little too much file and it's like slime. DH doesn't even like to look at it!
Interesting to know where my file/sassafras comes from. Guess I hadn't thought about it before.

Thanks Bubbles, but it's the okra that makes gumbo slimey, isn't it??? Not usually the file', I think.
Did you put too much okra in??
Yechhhhh.

Oh but I do love gumbo.

Thank you Sharon. As always, your story was written so beautifully and I can see the clouds in my mind.

Sassafras is one of my favorite trees. I have my own childhood memories of digging sassafras roots and making tea.

As a child, after I cut the sapling away to get the roots, I would use the sapling to make an arrow. Growing understory, they are usually perfectly straight and just the right size.

I think I'll dig some roots tomorrow!

Sharon, the okra is a thickening in shrimp or seafood gumbo for me. File just imparts a flavor I can't compare to anything else. I can add okra in the beginning of cooking gumbo, but i would never add file until the very last minute. It would turn ropey and slimey. But that's just my opinion, or an indication of how bad a cook I am!

Dave, thank you.

I never thought of making arrows with the sapling; guess I was too busy chewing on it to think about anything else. O Boy! I sure wish one grew nearby, I'd be drinking sassafras tea right now.

Did you collect feathers for your arrows? I did. Blue ones were my favorite.

Bubbles, I don't know. I add file' at the end, too. And I usually leave out the okra. It's thick enough with the roux.

Yes, and it was usually blue jay feathers that I used for my arrows. Why the ready availability of blue jay feathers? I'll leave that to your imagination.

Ha!
Perfect targets, big and loud as they were.

Typical boy stuff. Just yesterday we saw the Andy Griffith episode where Opie kills the mama bird with a sling shot & ends up raising the 3 babies, Winkin', Blinkin', & Nod. A good show to watch while eating. You can count they don't say or do anything gross in it.

Not just boy stuff, Anni! I was pretty good with a bow myself. Still am.
And sometimes even now I have the bruises on the inside of my elbow to prove it.

Every time I see the word sassafras, I'm transported back to my childhood too. My dad would bring the bark home (no clue where he got it) but he loved to make the tea and I loved the taste and the fragrance. I thought it was so cool to have pink tea

There would be 4 or 5 pieces of bark with a rubber band wrapped around them. Cut lengthwise too I can still see it in my mind.

We do have sassafras here

Great story and thanks for the memory

So Hank got up and we're having morning coffee and talking about sassafras and he said a word I hadn't heard since my childhood. Sasperilla - not spelling that right but I remember my dad saying it was a soft drink of sorts when he was a child. Hank said he thinks it was made from sassafras and vanilla??? I need to google that....

Just did a quickie Google & you can propagate by root cuttings. Sharon --- that would be faster than seed! Vic can go spelunking for some good roots & it's the perfect time of year. Well, you might have to start them inside in a pot but......

I wouldn't mind having a sassafras tree either.

Sharon,

You've answered all of my remaining questions about Sassafras in one highly captivating and interesting article. Thank you!

Today, I must take a few moments and collect a root or two, now that I know that this is the proper time. I haven't had "pink tea" in years!

[Ha! I had always wondered how you managed to get some bark off of a Sassafras tree's big roots (now I know it's a sapling I need) without waiting for one to blow over in a storm! That's the only way I'd ever seen any collected before reading this. ]

Great reading as always! I was hoping you mentioned the Spicebush Swallowtail using it as it's host plant. I have gotten a couple of saplings from Round Ups trying to get a Sassafras growing here but no luck.
I didn't know the filé powder we used in southern LA gumbo was part of the sassafras tree. Thanks for your memories!