Sassafras tea is not an everyday adventure
Sassafras is a wonderful word. Go ahead and say it two or three times. Sassafras trees are ubiquitous (another cool word) on my rocky hillside. In fact, I continually relocate young plants out of my garden and into the leaf mulch pile or else I would have a sassafras thicket and no garden.
Pine, oak and ash are words that belong in poems, but sassafras is jazz. I was disappointed to learn it was not from a Native American language but from a European mispronunciation of the name of a plant family to which sassafras does not belong. But let’s move on.
There are two Asian varieties of sassafras which in China are pronounced “chu mu” and “chu shu,” (more fun with words), but this focus is on Sassafras albinum, the variety spread over the eastern half of the United States. At some point in my youth, I became fascinated by the fact sassafras trees have leaves in three different shapes on each tree. Some are simply oval but nearby will be leaves shaped like a mitten– sometimes left-thumbed but not always– and there are also three-lobed leaves.
Native Americans for centuries used sassafras leaves, stems, bark and roots medicinally for a variety of ailments including rheumatism, toothaches, renal disorders, skin sores and bronchitis among other things. All parts of the plant are fragrant, so sassafras was used to upgrade the taste and smell of other herbal remedies.
Sir Walter Raleigh not only danced on street corners in London and sang ska with his brother Frank years of ahead of their time, he also captained ships to the New World and back, and he’s the one who brought sassafras to Europe. Europeans liked sassafras so much, ships were commissioned to go fetch more sassafras roots because they used the wood to build things. Also because of its appealing scent, people assumed sassafras would cure whatever. Some folks can be talked into anything.
By the 19th century in America, sassafras tea had spawned a sassafras-flavored soft drink industry. Charles Hires included sassafras root bark in the recipe for his famous root beer (in case you ever wondered why it is called root beer).
In my time of adolescence, I drank root beer, not real beer. I even drank Hawaiian Punch, but somehow I survived. Now I am facing the dilemma of should I follow millennia of native lore regarding the medicinal use of sassafras or heed the guidance of the Food and Drug Administration which in 1960 banned the sale of any foods which included safrole, the very chemical in sassafras that smells and tastes good?
Lab studies showed safrole caused liver cancer. Bummer. Will have to research further why very smart humans for thousands of years did not notice this until 60 years ago. Since antiquity, sassafras parts were a valued commodity for many families and their descendants.
In his book Herbal Renaissance, Steven Foster wrote, “Safrole is also found in basil, nutmeg, star anise, cinnamon leaf oil, black pepper and witch hazel, which seem to be none the worse for its presence.” Regardless of the legal restrictions, Foster noticed sassafras bark and leaves were still available in health food stores.
He said the toxicity is related to the amount of root bark tea consumed. “The lesson here,” Foster wrote, “is everything in moderation. A cup or two of sassafras tea a year is not likely to put you in the hospital – but I would refrain from drinking ten cups of sassafras tea a day.”
So, is it safe for me to collect sassafras leaves, dehydrate them in a shady corner, make filé powder and use it to flavor soups and stuff? According to a report from Texas A&M University, sassafras leaves contain hardly any safrole, so it is safe to make homemade filé for your gumbo, and you don’t have to eat frog legs. But again, moderation is your mantra.