Food

File powder

Also known as: filé, kombo, sassafras leaf powder

Powdered dried leaves of the sassafras tree (*Sassafras albidum*), used as a thickener and flavor base in Louisiana gumbo. The technique is a direct Choctaw inheritance — the Choctaw word *kombo* gives the dish gumbo part of its name, and Choctaw traders sold prepared file powder at the colonial-era New Orleans markets through the 19th century. File is added to gumbo at the end of cooking (it gets stringy if boiled) and contributes both a slight thickening and a distinctive root-beer-and-citrus aromatic. Sassafras was the original commercial source of safrole — the FDA banned safrole as a food additive in 1960, but file powder is exempt because the leaves contain only trace amounts. One of the clearest continuing Indigenous contributions to U.S. mainstream cuisine.

Cultural

The Choctaw and other Muskogean-speaking peoples of the southeastern U.S. used dried [[sassafras|sassafras]]-leaf powder as a thickener and seasoning long before European contact. Kombo is the Choctaw word; the term entered [[arabi|Louisiana]] French as filé (literally “spun/threaded” — referring to the slightly stringy texture file imparts when added to liquid).

Choctaw and Houma traders were a continuous presence at the colonial-and-early-American [[french-quarter|New Orleans]] markets — initially at the Choctaw Trading Site that became [[congo-square|Congo Square]], later at the French Market and adjacent street-corner trading. Dried sassafras leaves, prepared file powder, and other forest products (basket reeds, palmetto, medicinal herbs) were the principal trade items. The trade continued into the early 20th century; some accounts have Houma women still selling file from market baskets at the French Market into the 1930s.

Today file powder is commercially produced and sold (Zatarain’s, Tony Chachere’s, and several smaller [[arabi|Louisiana]] spice brands all carry it), but small-batch hand-prepared file from local [[sassafras|sassafras]] is still made by Houma and other South Louisiana Indigenous cooks and is sometimes available at the Bayou Pre-Columbian and other tribal-organization seasonal markets.

Use: stir 1/2 to 1 teaspoon into each individual bowl of gumbo just before serving, off the heat. File added to a boiling pot will turn the gumbo stringy and sticky.

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Cultural

contains

Gumbo the Choctaw-contributed sassafras-leaf thickener that is one of the three traditional gumbo thickeners

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Cultural

See also

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