What beverage was originally flavored with sassafras?
Sassafras starters. "Sassafras albidum" is an important ingredient in some distinct foods of the United States. It is the main ingredient in traditional root beer and sassafras root tea, and ground leaves of sassafras are a distinctive additive in Louisiana Creole cuisine. (See the article on filé powder, and a common thickening and flavoring agent in gumbo.) Methods of cooking with sassafras combine this ingredient native to America with traditional North American, as well as European, culinary techniques, to create a unique blend of Creole cuisine, and are thought by some to be heavily influenced by a blend of cultures. Sassafras
Sassafras albidum According to one legend, Christopher Columbus found North America because he could smell the scent of sassafras. As early as the 1560s, French visitors to North America discovered the medicinal qualities of sassafras, which was also exploited by the Spanish who arrived in Florida. English settlers at Roanoke reported surviving on boiled sassafras leaves and dog meat during times of starvation. Upon the arrival of the English on the Eastern coast of North America, sassafras trees were reported as plentiful. Sassafras was sold in England and in continental Europe, where it was sold as a dark beverage called "saloop" that