Saffron vs. Sassafras: A Crocus Thread and a Gumbo Leaf Compared

Saffron and sassafras share a first syllable and little else. Saffron is the dried stigma of a crocus, used in small amounts to color food gold and give it a bitter, aromatic note.¹² Sassafras is a North American tree; in the kitchen it is filé, the ground dried leaves that season and thicken Louisiana gumbo.³⁴ Its root bark once flavored root beer, but sassafras oil is about 80 percent safrole, and US rules have barred safrole and sassafras oil from food since 1960.⁵⁶ Neither can stand in for the other.

Side by side

The two compound rows are not comparable: they list different molecules doing different jobs, measured in different ways.

Two plants from opposite ends of the world

Saffron crocus is known only in cultivation; Kew calls it a cultigen from Greece,⁷ and a 2022 review of genetic and artistic evidence concludes it most likely arose and was domesticated in ancient Greece.⁸ Iran now grows most of it.¹¹ An American Herbal Products Association history lists the next producers as India, Greece, Afghanistan, Morocco and Spain, without dates.¹³

Sassafras is native from southeastern Canada through the central and eastern United States.³ Filé has Choctaw roots: Robert Caldwell, writing for the Louisiana encyclopedia 64 Parishes, says many Choctaw foods once used powdered sassafras,⁴ and Morgan Randall writes that the Choctaw gathered and dried the leaves to thicken and flavor soups.¹⁴ The claim that sassafras is “the only spice native to America” is often repeated; no source for it was found.

What each does in the pot

Saffron colors and perfumes. Crocin supplies the color, picrocrocin the bitterness and safranal the aroma, and the ISO 3632 quality test measures all three.² A small amount goes a long way. Cooks commonly crumble the threads into a little warm water or stock before adding them, which is practice rather than a sourced rule.

Filé seasons and thickens. Caldwell describes filé’s flavor as sweet, earthy, peppery and thyme-like.⁴ Katzer finds the leaf aroma weak but fresh and lemon-like, from an oil that makes up only about 0.4 percent of the leaf.⁹ The root beer smell often credited to sassafras belongs to the root: Katzer notes that sassafras oil was what flavored root beer in the United States.⁹

Timing matters more for filé. Caldwell says filé added after the heat is reduced seasons a gumbo, soup or stew, and that it is most often sprinkled on as a finishing garnish. Cooked in early, it turns the pot viscous and stringy, like ropes when poured.⁴ Filé is one of the three common gumbo thickeners, with okra and roux.⁴ No source reviewed here names the compound that does the thickening.

Safety is the real difference

Sassafras. US rules deem food adulterated if it contains added safrole or oil of sassafras, or if its main purpose is to carry them, with sassafras tea as the regulation’s example; the rule cites an order of December 3, 1960.⁵ Two sassafras ingredients remain permitted as flavorings, both only without safrole: a safrole-free water extract of the root bark,¹⁵ and the leaves, listed among natural flavorings with the limitation “safrole free.”¹² No FDA statement addressing filé powder by name was found.

The National Toxicology Program lists safrole as reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen, on evidence that it caused liver tumors in two rodent species; it reports no epidemiological studies of people exposed specifically to safrole.¹⁶ Katzer considers sassafras leaves and filé generally harmless at culinary amounts because their safrole content is low, while strongly discouraging use of the root;⁹ that judgment is his. In the EU, safrole may not be added to food as such, but the maximum levels for compound foods do not apply where the only flavoring ingredients added are herbs and spices.¹⁷

Saffron. The Drugs.com monograph says amounts above 5 g, far more than food uses, have uterine stimulant and abortive effects.¹⁸ At kitchen quantities the safety question is fraud, not toxicity: see saffron on adulteration.

Can one stand in for the other?

No. Saffron has none of filé’s thickening or herbal, lemony flavor, and filé has none of saffron’s color or aroma. That is our judgment, and no source suggests either swap. What to use instead depends on the job:

• For saffron’s color, turmeric, safflower or annatto, with the ratios and their sources on saffron substitutes.
• For filé’s thickening, okra or roux, its two traditional partners,⁴ or a cornstarch slurry; see gumbo filé substitutes and sassafras substitutes.

Where each belongs

Saffron. Britannica lists Mediterranean and Asian dishes, especially rice and fish, English, Scandinavian and Balkan breads, and bouillabaisse.¹ Paella is, by Britannica’s definition, saffron-flavored rice.¹⁹ Persian jeweled rice, halva and risotto are often named too; no qualifying source was found for them here.

Sassafras. Filé belongs to gumbo. Caldwell writes that filé gumbos and okra gumbos were traditionally separate dishes, partly because okra was seasonal,⁴ and Randall describes filé as what cooks reached for when okra was out of season.¹⁴ Sassafras root once flavored root beer alongside sarsaparilla, juniper and vanilla, until the FDA banned sassafras oil and safrole as food additives in 1960.⁶

What isn’t known

• No measured safrole content for retail filé powder was found.
• No price comparison between the two was found; the saffron figure is a ceiling, not a market price.
• No production figures for sassafras or filé were found.
• Which compound gives filé its thickening power is not stated in any source reviewed.

Related

• Saffron, saffron substitutes, cooking with saffron and why saffron is so expensive
• Sassafras, sassafras substitutes, gumbo filé powder and gumbo filé substitutes
• Safflower vs. saffron and saffron vs. turmeric
• Cajun seasoning and Creole seasoning