11 October, 2015 - Houston
I love root beer!
Being from New Orleans, I still recall the wonderful flavor of a beverage called Barq's. All it said besides its name was the slogan:"Drink Barq's ® — It's Good!"
Sure, there were other root beers around. We had Weight Root beer and Big Shot Root Beer, both manufactured locally, Dad's, and Hires, and in the 1960's, The Coca-Cola company introduced Rex Root Beer - whose name appealed to the Mardi-Gras city's residents simply because of its name, REX, the King of Carnival!
One day in 1966, the city drained Bayou St. John to a low level in order to do some bridge repairs. My grandfather and I methodically walked along the bayou's edge and, using a hooked cane, fished out pop bottles that had been thrown there long ago. We did so for the purpose of cleaning them and turning them in for their 2¢ deposit.
They were dirty and smelly, full of mud and brakish water, and sometimes when the goo was emptied from the bottle, a tiny fiddler crab would even scurry out of the muck, eager to return to his watery home. Many of the bottles there were encrusted with barnacles, indicating that they had been there for awhile.
From the murky depths
I fished out a bottle which, from its shape I immediately determined it to be a Barq's Root Beer bottle. And indeed it was. It was cleaner than most, no doubt having been thrown into the water relatively recently. Emptying it of its liquid contents, I read the writing and asked:"I know this is root beer, but why don't they SAY it is?"
This may be an Urban Legend, but my grandfather then told me that, long ago, when root beer was really made from actual roots, a man was prescribed root beer for his stomach. When the problem did not clear up, the man investigated, and took action against the company for misrepresenting their product. Apparently Barq's defense was that although the ingredients were not roots, and they did indeed have "contains artificial ingredients" printed on the bottle cap. Supposedly the man won the suit and money. According to the official Barq's website, t
he Barq's Brothers Bottling Company was founded in 1898 in the French Quarter of New Orleans, by Edward Charles Edmond Barq and his older brother, Gaston. The Barq Brothers bottled carbonated water and various sodas of their own creation. The company later moved to nearby Biloxi, Mississippi, where its operation flourished.
Nothing at all is mentioned in the website about this supposed lawsuit. Perhaps the "lawsuit" was intentionally omitted, or maybe it never occurred. Very likely, as is suggested in the site, the real reason Barq's declined to refer to its product as "Root Beer" was because at the time, a major national competitor, Hires, was trying to trademark the name "root beer." They suggest also that Barq's was not marketed as a root beer per se because it was not sarsaparilla-based, as were most root beers of the day. Barq's product also had a higher caffein content.
A QUIRKY INGREDIENT
True ROOT beers did indeed exist, and were originally homemade. SASSAFRAS (what is called in Louisiana cooking circles, "GUMBO FILÉ") root tonics were made by Native Americans for culinary and medicinal reasons before the arrival of Europeans in North America, but European cooking techniques have been used in making traditional sassafras-based root-beer-like beverages since Colonial times.
Sassafras is a plant, known by many names. In Québec, (where many Louisiana residents have distant ancestors), it was called "Laurier des Iroquois," after one of the local Native American tribes, hostile to the French settlers, who introduced it to the French colonists there. It is most probable that immigrants to Louisiana from Québec brought the sassafras with them.
The root bark is used to make medicine: Sassafras has been used as a treatment (not a cure!) for urinary tract disorders, swelling in the nose and throat, bronchitis, high blood pressure in older people, gout, arthritis, skin problems, and cancer. It is also used as a tonic and “blood purifier.”
Some people apply sassafras directly to the skin to treat skin problems, achy joints (rheumatism), swollen eyes, and sprains and sassafras oil is also applied to the skin to kill germs and head lice. It has also been used by Native Americans to treat and relieve the stinging of insect bites and stings, including, interestingly enough, the wasp-sting symptoms of syphilis, a disease known to have been brought back by Columbus' crewmen upon return from their first visit to the New World in 1492.
Immediately after Columbus's return, an epidemic of syphilis hit Europe, infecting fully ⅕ of the population at one time. Called the "French Disease" at first, the French no doubt introduced the disease back into the New World as Canada and Louisiana were colonized.
As for sassafras, its real beneficial medicinal effects have yet to be proven scientifically.
Safrole is an oily liquid typically extracted from the root-bark or the fruit of sassafras plants in the form of sassafras oil. Due to its role in the manufacture of MDMA, an illegal drug known as Ectasy, demand for safrole is causing rapid and illicit harvesting of the Cinnamomum parthenoxylon tree in Southeast Asia, in particular the Cardamom Mountains in Cambodia.
In the United States, safarole was once widely used as a food additive in root beer, sassafras tea, and other common goods, but was banned by the FDA in 1976 after its carcinogenicity in rats was discovered.
So, perhaps it is best that, just as Coca-Cola no longer contains cocaine, Barq's, thankfully no longer has sassafras, and neither do any known root beers manufactured anywhere. But the earthy flavor that hardens back to the old days, like everything else, is artificial and imitation, and those of us who love that flavor can lift our glass to the Native Americans who came before us, and thank them for such a wonderful legacy — the legacy of Root Beer.
MEDICINES BECOMES REFRESHMENT
With the advent of artificial carbonation and the development of new bottling methods, pseudo-medicine met refreshments, and violà, the soda-pop industry was born!
☤Coca-Cola was invented by a PHARMACIST!
This was during a time when patent medicines were still around, at least to an extent. You may not remember Lydia Pinkhams compound, or even the infamous Hadacol, but a few things lasted into the late Fifties. I believe Geritol and Serutan are still sold in stores, Doan's Pills, Carter's Little Liver Pills, Father John's Medicine, Listerine, Dr. Tichener's Antiseptic, and others for many years were able to get around FDA restrictions, but FDA frowned on small remedies, with people self-prescribing and self-medicating. The AMA lobby saw to that. If they had their way, even aspirin would require a ℞ prescription.
These remedies, concoctions and "tonics" — many containing alcohol as well — once aimed at pepping one up or making one feel better, became more and more popular for their flavor, and the medicinal aspect became diminished, and likewise the alcohol, and the cost of the now beverage went down. Liquid refreshment was just a "pop" of a bottle away, and root beer joined sarsaparilla, colas, and orange drinks which began to be sold and enjoyed everywhere.
Hey, I'm wondering how many great New Orleans cooks knew that when you drank root beer, it was originally Gumbo Filé? You can thank those who were here before us, the "Indians", for both your seasoning and for the root beer!!!!
By the way, the late, great, Hank Williams made filé famous with his song "Jambalaya" — that goes in part, "Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie and filé gumbo..." The song was a big hit, even though it is Gumbo Filé.
