On 29 Apr 2008 at 16:14, Richard Gosling wrote:
> Root beer? I vaguely remember McDonalds selling that something
> like 20 years ago (I ordered it once by mistake hoping it would
> be ginger beer, or at least similar)
Ah yes, and 40 years ago it might have been real root beer. The
prime taste ingredient was from the sassafras tree, a common native
plant of southeastern US (and other places). The distinctive visual
feature of sassafras is the leaf, some oval, some oval with a smaller
side oval like a mitten, and some with a second small oval on the
other side like a mitten with separate areas for both thumb and
little finger. Rootbeer and sassafras tea made by boiling the root
were traditional brews, though tea wasn't so common. Then somebody
discovered that it caused liver damage so the FDA banned it. Since
then any rootbeer has been fake. Some would say it was no great
loss. Rootbeer was what you might call an acquired taste. Some
might say the same about Valvoline.
Wikipedia has a nice posting about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassafras
Jim Muller
jimmuller@rcn.com
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