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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Support Team.Net http://www.team.net/donate.html [email protected] http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo/spitfires http://www.team.net/archive
