They grow like weeds here, starting out as nondescript green shoots but soon they develop these “lizard feet” shaped leaves, Spatulate is a word I think of but maybe palmately lobed is a better description. This one is pushing up between my deck and steps and needs to be taken care of again.
It’s a Sassafras tree, and if you ignore them they can get big, there is one in Kentucky that is over 90 feet tall, they spread like bamboo via underground shoots from the main stem.
At one time the roots of Sassafras were used to make Root Beer or small beer (or Sarsparilla as it may still be known in Australia) a popular brewed beverage here due to it’s low-to-zero alcohol content and near zero taste (my opinion only) and other valuable tonic drinks. The leaves were also crushed and dried to make filé powder, an important ingredient in the cooking of genuine gumbo (and I’m NOT explaining gumbo here). The native Americans knew the tree well and all its uses and presumably derived some real and lasting benefit from its medicines.
Partly as a result of their widespread availability, medical efficacy and almost negligible cost, natural Sassafras extracts have long been banned here but this may be also due to the fact that the principal active ingredient, safrole was found to be a carcinogen (what isn’t in large doses?). Sassafras extracts were long used in Europe as a cure for gonorrhea, leaving sufferers of same, somewhat between a rock and a hard place before the advent of modern medicine.
Near where I write this, on the Chesapeake Bay’s eastern shore lies the Sassafras River, originally called the Tockwough after the inhabitants of the area, by the first European to stumble in here from his leaky row boat, one Captain John Smith by name (more about him later). In the case of the more recently arriving locals Tockwough proved too tough for their vocal chords so they renamed their river the Sassafras, after the tree, and so it remains.
The Sassafras River forms the southern boundary of Cecil County (that’s after Cecil Calvert, 2nd Lord Baltimore who also modestly named the city across the bay after himself) and the northern edge of Kent County (no surprises where that name came from). The river is crossed by an old fashioned Bascule (draw) bridge. The bridge is manned 24/7 as they say, and river traffic always has the right of way, there is not much of it, it is all recreational and inevitably wants the bridge open when I am in a hurry to get somewhere by road.
An involuntary pause for a bridge opening may result in one’s attention being drawn to one of the strangest monuments to be seen at least hereabouts. Close by the right hand side of the northern bank and tucked between the bridge and an ugly modern brick built electrical sub-station is this wonderful object.
It’s a stone carving of a loaf of bread. Sassafras bread, or bread made from pounded Sassafras root, and draped elegantly over it is a carved scroll commemorating the discovery (sic) and exploration of the river by the same Captain John Smith in about 1608.
Wonderful what one can find when not looking. Does anyone know the whereabouts of any other stone monuments in the shape of cottage loaves?
Boadicea's Chariot 
Short answer, no!
Wonderful evocative story. How I love sassafras! I still buy file powder, you can get it online through Zartrains in New Orleans. Of course you can’t buy it up here, but then you can’t buy anything much in the way of spices up here in the NW, they like their food very plain.
For those of you who have never eaten gumbo file it appears to be a cross between a bowl of sewage and a bowl of wet compost, full of big shrimp and crawfish and tastes like heaven.
The best gumbo in Memphis used to be had in a clip/strip joint, made by a big old black mama from the coast, it was to die for! Everyone tried manfully to not look at the wet T shirt competitions going on simultaneously quite put one off one’s bowl! Bizarre place Memphis, always was and still is I hear. Never forget the hoohaa when a white politician was shot to death in an argument on the steps of a black brothel, I gather it wasn’t over the tariff either!
Sassafras trees always reminds me of the boating goat tale, I will look out the pics and post it.
in Memphis even the goats go boating! LW thank you for stirring the memory cells!
Good stuff, LW. Nope, never encountered any other stone breads or tasted sarsparilla for that matter. What does it taste like?
Beautiful leaves, good story. And the answer’s ‘no’-
though there are pubs called ‘The Cottage Loaf’
http://www.the-cottageloaf.co.uk/
There’s one on Dartmoor (England) called the COTTAGE LOAF, AKA Eastern Whittaburrow.
See http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/cairns_moor.htm
Hello CO: Yes, file gumbo fortunately tastes so much better than it looks, here’s some that even looks halfway decent, especially those fat mudbugs swimming in there.
Hello JanH: Sarsparilla tastes like root beer and vice versa (helpful of me,yes?) The few I’ve tried all tasted different, some spicy some citrus, all can be improved with a very large scoop of good vanilla ice cream dropped in on top. Kind of like the old Dandelion and Burdock but one has to be a certain age to know about that.
Hello Pseu: Here’s another Cottage Loaf, this ones up on the Wirral.
I think I might like it. I *love* dandelion and burdock, LW!!! You can still get it can’t you? Never tried it with a vanilla Haagen Daaz though. Might be spectacular 😉
Janh: Never could get D and B here, if asked people would look at you like you had dropped a bad word on them. I have not seen it in the UK in quite a while. Haagen Daaz or Ben and Jerry’s only, no inferior brands, careful when you plop it in it fizzes like mad.
Your number 7,LW, was the one I had in mind when looking for a cottage loaf.
Janus: I wonder if it looks like a cottage loaf or just a pile of rocks?
You can still buy dandelion and burdock in Wales if that is any help!
Good, CO. I’ll look for it next time I’m there.