Northern Trees with Edible Leaves

[230gr]

Except for Beech and Sassafras, I have successful plantings of these trees as a backup food source for goats but they can supply human food though mostly in the spring.

Northern Trees with Edible Leaves
Beech- young leaves have a flavor somewhere between lemon and sorrel and are a tasty salad green.
Basswood (Linden)- The leaves of linden are a delicious when salad green when eaten young with the crunch that iceberg lettuce and more nutrition. The leaves can also dry and grind them into a powder for addition to soups.
Birch- Birch leaves offer a hint of bitterness that in small amounts, mixed with other greens in salads similar to radicchio. The dried leaves can be used for herbal tea combined with mint. 
Hawthorn- Before the flowers or berries appear, the leaves are at their best, with a rich, nutty flavor. You can eat them in a salad or chop them and sprinkle over dishes as a parsley substitute.
Mulberry-  When young, the unrolled leaves are also edible as is, however, the older leaves have a bit of toxicity that can cause a stomachache and need to be boiled before eaten or dried, add to salads or stuffed as if a grape leaf.
Sassafras- The green buds and young leaves are delicious in salads. The dried leaves, veins removed, are used to thickened and flavored soups and stews.
Sugar Maple- Young maple leaves are also edible in into a salad or boil with other spring greens in pottage but bitter as they mature.

[TWP]

In Arkansas we used Sassafras root to make real root beer.  It has since been replaced by the manufactured flavoring, but it doesn't taste the same.

That being said, there is a chemical in the root, safrole, which is labeled as a carcenogen...

Some information:

https://www.drweil.com/diet-nutrition/food-safety/sassafras-tea-safety/

[230gr]

One of my favorite childhood memories is of helping my father dynamite fence row trees. One of the fields in particular always had sassafras trees that needed to be removed. We always harvested the roots when we blew sassafras trees. The smell was so enjoyable and the sweetened tea very taste. As a survivor of generations of sassafras tea drinkers, I believe the “danger” of drinking sassafras tea very much over blown.  If you look up the physical properties of safrole, you will see that it is not soluble in water and, in fact sinks, to the bottom of a container of it. I might not drink it every day but, IMO, occasionally would be fine.

Consuming moderate amounts of safrole in plant products (such as sassafras tea) is not comparable to injecting large amounts of the pure chemical into the abdomens of rats. A search of the medical literature for sassafras tea shows only one report of an adverse effect: excessive sweating in a man who began drinking it.

Small amounts of safrole also occur naturally in black pepper, star anise, nutmeg, witch hazel, and basil, all of which are safe in the amounts usually consumed.

Andrew Weil, M.D.
https://www.drweil.com/diet-nutrition/food-safety/sassafras-tea-safety/

[TWP]

Since I use black pepper, nutmeg and basil in many of my dishes, I would guess that safrole is relatively safe.

Too bad Sassafras doesn't grow here in Nevada...

It can't be too much of a danger, I see many ads for Sassafras root, in both chunk and powder form.   I won't tell the FDA if you won't.

[Jerry D Young]

I grew up drinking sassafras tea from time to time. It was always a treat. We had a tree a few hundred yards from the house and I would go down, usually twice a summer when I was old enough, to dig the roots out and cut a few to take home for the winter. I have never had any ill effects from it, and I still drink it when I can get a decent package of root.

I really need to stock up on it, or get a place so I can have a greenhouse with a couple of trees. Though we never made it, we had a friend that made root beer that included sassafras, along with several other things he found locally there in Missouri. The soft was great. The hard I did not care for, the one time I was allowed to taste it. That guy could make anything and everything that a person might want to drink. He was even known for his lemonade. Some special lemon he went to either Florida or Texas to get every year.

Just my opinion.