Gumbo Filé, M. E. M’Ilhenny, Avery Island, Louisiana
“Gumbo Filet Powder is made of the tender young leaves of the sassafras,” wrote Jane Gilmor Howard in her 1873 cookbook Fifty Years in A Maryland Kitchen, “picked in the Spring, and dried carefully in the shade as you do herbs; powdered fine, bottled and corked tight. It is much used in New Orleans.” This…