Handmade Filé

Sassafras albidum

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Handmade Filé , which is also known as Gumbo Filé  and Filé  Powder, is a powder made from the leaves of the Sassafras Tree.  The Choctaw Indians of Louisiana are believed to be the first users of sassafras, a type of laurel tree native to North America. The tender leaves of the Sassafras were dried and pounded into a fine powder, which was used as a flavoring and thickening agent.  When ingested, the powder causes the body to perspire, and so it was used medicinally to break fevers.  The Choctaw originally sold this powerful herb to the Creoles of New Orleans in the earliest days of the French Market.
Handmade Filé  powder is extremely rare and currently only a few producers still follow the time-honored fashion of hand harvesting, drying and curing the sassafras leaves before pounding them with a pestle in a traditional cypress mortar. Filé  produced in this manner is fresher, evident in it’s bright green color and has a more vibrant flavor.
Lionel Key, of Uncle Bill’s Spices, currently produces Filé  using the same recipe as well as the same mortar and pestle that his blind Uncle Bill used when he began making the powder in 1904. The spice is currently offered for sale from Uncle Bill’s Spices at the Crescent City Farmer’s Market in New Orleans and at the Red Stick Market in Baton Rouge.  A handful of small producers in tiny communities in the Cajun country of Southwestern Louisiana also continue to make the traditional Filé .

Sources

Uncle Bill’s Spices
Lionel Key
225-267-9220
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
http://www.unclebillspices.com

Uncle Bill’s Spices
Crescent City Farmer’s Market
700 Magazine Street
New Orleans, LA 70118
http://www.cresentcityfarmersmarket.org

Red Stick Farmers Market
5th and Main Streets
Baton Rouge, LA 70802
225-267-5060
http://www.redstickfarmersmarket.com

Find Producers on LocalHarvest

http://www.localharvest.org/ark-product.jsp?id=145