The preparation of filé from the sassafras tree is an old Creole tradition that stems from the Choctaw Indians.
John Oswald Colson, known as Oz, harvests leaves from a sassafras tree in the Kisatchie National Forest in order to make his signature filé. Courtesy of Dusty Fuqua
By Jonathan Olivier
The Creoles of Cane River, isolated between hills of Kisatchie National Forest to the west and the Red River to the east, have retained their culture with traditions that go back to the colonial period. They are a mixture of Native Americans, enslaved Africans, free people of color, and Europeans.
Surrounded by American anglophones, they spoke French or Kouri-Vini due to their proximity to Natchitoches, which was founded by French explorers in 1714 as the first permanent village in Louisiana.
"There is a lot of the language that has disappeared, but cultural traditions endure," said Dustin Fuqua, anthropologist at the Cane River National Heritage Area.
One of the cultural relics that remain is the manufacture of filé made from leaves of the sassafras tree, an ancient tradition of the Choctaw. When sassafras leaves are ground into powder, it can thicken a soup—just like okra. But, for many in Cane River, filé has always served as the base of gumbo, not okra.
After sassafras leaves are harvested, Colson and Fuqua crush them into a fine powder, known as filé. Courtesy of Dusty Fuqua
"Today, when you make a gumbo, you need flour, oil, and then you start," Fuqua said. “Way in the past, there were no ingredients like that. You’d have to use some pig lard, if you had any, or bear grease. Maybe there wasn’t any okra available out here on the frontier, but they had the sassafras tree, so they used the filé."
Fuqua said that Cane River was well known because of its quality filé. Currently, however, because of over harvesting in the area, it is difficult to find someone who still makes it locally. A few years ago Fuqua started looking to find out if there were any tradition bearers left, and he found John Oswald Colson, who most everyone in Cane River just calls Oz.
Colson started making filé when he was young, but had stopped the practice due to the lack of sassafras trees near his home in Cane River. The 85-year-old wanted to continue the tradition the old-fashioned way—by hand—and Fuqua decided to help him out. "Oz came to me and he said he wanted to continue this tradition, but he was older and he didn’t know how to do it," Fuqua said.
So, Fuqua contacted officials at Kisatchie National Forest to request access to forage for sassafras. After a green light, Fuqua and Colson began their quest, searching through the longleaf pine savannas of the forest.
Sassafras leaves are best picked in the early summer, when the foliage is new and the bugs haven’t damaged them too much. Courtesy of Dusty Fuqua
During the spring, the duo harvests sassafras leaves in order to make several batches of filé. It takes a few weeks to air-dry the leaves, and then they’ll crush them, sift them, and bottle the powder. The quality, Fuqua said, far surpasses any store-bought filé.
"The commercial process produces a brown finish without much flavor because there are probably all sorts of sticks in it," Fuqua said." Our filé smells incredible and is bright green."
Since that first forage, they continue to collect dozens of bags of sassafras every year to process in order to sell jars of filé around the state. But by continuing this tradition, it’s more than just making money. It is a way to perpetuate part of the culture of Cane River that will disappear if no one does anything.
Fuqua has hope that making filé the old-fashioned way will always be part of the culture of Louisiana, just like boucheries, Mardi Gras, or Cajun and Zydeco music.