Wild Spring Plant Foods: The Foxfire Americana Library (7) by Edited by Foxfire Students Page A
Authors: Edited by Foxfire Students
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help you to determine their identity.
There is almost nothing better after a long winter (and remember, most greens are best when young and tender) than a mess of dandelion, lamb’s quarters, or cress. Absolutely nothing equals a dish of wildstrawberries freshly gathered in a sunny meadow, with all the goodness of sun and rain within their tart sweetness. Have fun in the gathering, and good eating!
SPRING TONIC TIME
After a long winter, spring was the time to refresh the spirit and tone up the system with a tonic. The mountain people used teas as beverages and as tonics. They would gather the roots or barks in the proper season, dry them, store them in a dry place, and use them as they wanted them. People used sugar, honey, or syrup to sweeten the teas. Common spring tonics were sassafras, spicebush, and sweet birch.
Lovey Kelso told us, “We had to have sassafras tea, or spicewood, to tone up the blood in spring, but I never cared for either.”
Sassafras
(Sassafras albidum)
(family
Lauraceae
)
(white sassafras, root beer tree, ague tree, saloop)
Sassafras is usually a small tree, growing in clumps, in old fields and at woods’ edge. It is one of the first trees to appear on cut-over lands. In the mountains, however, sassafras may grow to sixty feet tall. Twigs and the bark of young trees are bright green, older bark becomes crackled in appearance. Leaves are variable in shape, being oval, mitten-shaped, or three-divided. Leaves, twigs, and bark are all aromatic. The greenish-yellow, fragrant flowers appear in early spring and arefollowed by deep blue berries. The so-called “red sassafras” is identified by some botanists as
Sassafras albidum
variety
molle
, and has soft hairiness on the leaves and twigs. The recipes that follow can be used with either variety.
I LLUSTRATION 1 Sassafras in spring
Twigs, roots, or root bark are used for tea, candy, jelly, and flavorings. Leaves are dried and used to thicken soups. Blossoms are also boiled for tea.
Sassafras has a long history of use as food. It was one of the first woods exported to England where it was sold as a panacea for all ills, guaranteed to cure “quotidian and tertian agues, and lung fevers, to cause good appetite, make sweet a stinking breath, help dropsy, comfort the liver and feeble stomach, good for stomach ulcers, skin troubles, sore eyes, catarrh, dysentery, and gout.” There was even a song used to advertise sassafras: “In the spring of the year when the blood is too thick, there is nothing so fine as a sassafras stick. It tones up the liver and strengthens the heart, and to the whole system new life doth impart.”
In the mountains sassafras has always been used as a beverage and a tonic. There is an old saying: “Drink sassafras during the month of March, and you won’t need a doctor all year.” Sassafras was a blood purifier and tonic and a “sweater-outer” of fevers. Red sassafras is best, but as someone said, “Red is hard to get nowadays. The mountains used to be full of it.”
Sassafras is best gathered in the spring when the bark “slips” or peels off easily. Florence Brooks told us, “Find a small bush, pull up roots and all, or dig down by the base of a tree and cut off a few sections of root. Wash the roots and scrub until the bark is pink and clean. Peel off the pinkish bark for tea.” Mrs. Norton said that “some claim the root is better but you can just use the branches.” Big roots should be “pounded to a pulp.”
Fanny Lamb said, “Get some sassafras when the leaves are young and tender, just eat leaves and all like you have seen the cows do. Eat leaves and tender twigs and everything.”
Alvin Lee wrote, “It’s a remedy for colds, and for those down in the dumps from a long winter. It’s a spring tonic. ’Course some folks drink it year around.” Sassafras is supposed to be used on and after February 14. With golden seal and wild cherry, it makes a very potent tonic.
Sassafras tea: gather old field
There is almost nothing better after a long winter (and remember, most greens are best when young and tender) than a mess of dandelion, lamb’s quarters, or cress. Absolutely nothing equals a dish of wildstrawberries freshly gathered in a sunny meadow, with all the goodness of sun and rain within their tart sweetness. Have fun in the gathering, and good eating!
SPRING TONIC TIME
After a long winter, spring was the time to refresh the spirit and tone up the system with a tonic. The mountain people used teas as beverages and as tonics. They would gather the roots or barks in the proper season, dry them, store them in a dry place, and use them as they wanted them. People used sugar, honey, or syrup to sweeten the teas. Common spring tonics were sassafras, spicebush, and sweet birch.
Lovey Kelso told us, “We had to have sassafras tea, or spicewood, to tone up the blood in spring, but I never cared for either.”
Sassafras
(Sassafras albidum)
(family
Lauraceae
)
(white sassafras, root beer tree, ague tree, saloop)
Sassafras is usually a small tree, growing in clumps, in old fields and at woods’ edge. It is one of the first trees to appear on cut-over lands. In the mountains, however, sassafras may grow to sixty feet tall. Twigs and the bark of young trees are bright green, older bark becomes crackled in appearance. Leaves are variable in shape, being oval, mitten-shaped, or three-divided. Leaves, twigs, and bark are all aromatic. The greenish-yellow, fragrant flowers appear in early spring and arefollowed by deep blue berries. The so-called “red sassafras” is identified by some botanists as
Sassafras albidum
variety
molle
, and has soft hairiness on the leaves and twigs. The recipes that follow can be used with either variety.
I LLUSTRATION 1 Sassafras in spring
Twigs, roots, or root bark are used for tea, candy, jelly, and flavorings. Leaves are dried and used to thicken soups. Blossoms are also boiled for tea.
Sassafras has a long history of use as food. It was one of the first woods exported to England where it was sold as a panacea for all ills, guaranteed to cure “quotidian and tertian agues, and lung fevers, to cause good appetite, make sweet a stinking breath, help dropsy, comfort the liver and feeble stomach, good for stomach ulcers, skin troubles, sore eyes, catarrh, dysentery, and gout.” There was even a song used to advertise sassafras: “In the spring of the year when the blood is too thick, there is nothing so fine as a sassafras stick. It tones up the liver and strengthens the heart, and to the whole system new life doth impart.”
In the mountains sassafras has always been used as a beverage and a tonic. There is an old saying: “Drink sassafras during the month of March, and you won’t need a doctor all year.” Sassafras was a blood purifier and tonic and a “sweater-outer” of fevers. Red sassafras is best, but as someone said, “Red is hard to get nowadays. The mountains used to be full of it.”
Sassafras is best gathered in the spring when the bark “slips” or peels off easily. Florence Brooks told us, “Find a small bush, pull up roots and all, or dig down by the base of a tree and cut off a few sections of root. Wash the roots and scrub until the bark is pink and clean. Peel off the pinkish bark for tea.” Mrs. Norton said that “some claim the root is better but you can just use the branches.” Big roots should be “pounded to a pulp.”
Fanny Lamb said, “Get some sassafras when the leaves are young and tender, just eat leaves and all like you have seen the cows do. Eat leaves and tender twigs and everything.”
Alvin Lee wrote, “It’s a remedy for colds, and for those down in the dumps from a long winter. It’s a spring tonic. ’Course some folks drink it year around.” Sassafras is supposed to be used on and after February 14. With golden seal and wild cherry, it makes a very potent tonic.
Sassafras tea: gather old field
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