The weather has mercifully turned colder with a seasonal low of 37 degrees this morning. In anticipation of this change we have been rushing around the past couple of weeks harvesting the last muscadines and scuppernongs, green tomatoes, hatch peppers and herbs. Yesterday in a fit of derring-do I climbed on top of the equipment shed, leaned far out, and harvested the last of the figs from our twenty-foot tall tree. But, for this man, and I speak for no other, cold weather has me thinking of food: stews of all sorts, chili verde, goulash, bean soups, greens, a bowl of red and of course gumbo.

Last night a first time making the Alsatian dish Choucroute. A real show stopper of a dish that regretfully only the two of us dined on and experienced the joy of eating. It included several pounds of freshly fermented sauerkraut, ham hocks, smoked pork kielbasa, cured ham, onions, clove, coriander seeds, and a bottle of homemade muscadine rose wine. A quick hour and half in the oven, served on a big platter with fresh boiled Kennebec potatoes and we could call it a farm to table dinner since most of the ingredients came from our farm and gardens.

But Friday night, and this is where the title of this piece comes into the picture, we had gumbo. Made with one of our Saxony ducks and some pork sausage, a good gumbo is good for what ails you. A few weeks back while looking over our stock of spices a moment of horror when I found our Zatarain’s stash of gumbo filé was dangerously low. For the uninitiated, filé powder is the final garnish atop any bowl of gumbo. A natural thickening agent, with a slight hint of bay leaf and spice it is indispensable.

An hour into Knoxville to find a place carrying filé, made from ground sassafras leaves. Or, hang on; we have a grove of sassafras trees by our drive. So trooping out to the grove I harvested enough to fill a two gallon bucket. These leaves were spread out on the drying racks in the greenhouse. Once dry I cleaned them of twigs and stems and pulverized the remaining leaves into a powder. Hard to describe, if you haven’t had the commercial spice, how fresh and aromatic my home ground filé smelled and tasted. But farewell Zatarain’s, you will not be missed.

What a great tree is the sassafras: a critical ingredient for gumbo from the leaves, root beer from the bark and roots. What more could you ask for? Ah, how about those fruit loops. For those who know, in early spring the emerging little curled leaves of the sassafras tree taste remarkably like Fruit Loops cereal. And that is a good thing to know if Western Civilization crashes into the dustbin of history. Who wouldn’t want a natural alternative to one of our crowning industrial achievements?

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