[Magdalen] Rhubarb cookies

[Cantor03 at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/14/2015 10:54:32 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
ann.markle at aya.yale.edu writes:

I grew  rhubarb in TN on the Cumberland Plateau.  It never really  thrived,
though, and the leaves/stalks never got very big after the first  year or
two.  My mother also made rhubarb pies and stewed  rhubarb.  I managed to
stew some and then add Splenda (since off  sugar), and it came out well.  In
our neck of the woods, sassafras tea  was the "spring tonic," said to "thin
the blood" after a long winter.   Who knows if sassafras root has natural
blood thinner?  Some of those  old home remedies are as good as the modern
stuff we get at the drug store,  if less standardized.>>>
 
Sassafras (S. albidum) is a very common understory tree here in  
Pennsylvania,
but I never hear anyone talk about making sassafras tea.  How is it  made?
Do you just dig up some small roots and boil them?
 
My best undergraduate friend - who committed suicide tragically a year ago  
-
was raised on a farm north of Madison, Wisconsin, and his  grandparents
who founded the farm planted both rhubarb and asparagus along the  front
of their property, which also happened to be the edge of a Wisconsin  state
highway.  
 
In the spring, travelers on the highway would stop and harvest
both of these within 50 feet of their front door.  Reminds me of  persons 
who
entered my private property in Chippewa County Wisconsin to harvest
Christmas boughs and trees without permission.
 
 
David Strang.