As part of the 'Developed World' we have lost much of our cultural and culinary heritage. Food has become 'safe' (for which read pre-packaged, bland and uniform). It's though that we rely on maybe 30 species of plants for our food and most of these belong to the cabbage, potato, grass, apple and citrus families of plants.

The truth is that we have forgotten how to use many of the plants around us. And even for those plants that we know are edible, we have forgotten how to use them. A good case in point is the Linden or Lime tree (Tilia spp). This is a large tree and a native of Europe and North America which was prized during the Anglo Saxon era as a tree for making shields. It's flowers are very aromatic and as a result it was planted in many cities during the 19th century to try and overcome the prevailing stink of sewers and horses and this is why it's so common today.

It's known from ancient sources that the sap, flowers, fruit and leaves of the tree are edible. Linden flower tea is still made and young linden leaves are used as a spring green in salads. But much of the knowledge of how to use the older leaves has been lost. Or so it's been thought...

It emerges, after a little research, that linden leaves were used in France during the Second World War. When flour became scarce mature linden leaves were dried, pounded to a paste before being sieved. The resultant powder was mixed with flour as an adulterant. Linden leaf flour was also added as a thickener to soups and stews and was mixed with oats or barley to make porridge or pap for breakfast.

The use of linden leaf flour as a thickener struck a chord... I know of two cultures where tree leaves are habitually used as thickeners for stews. Baobab leaves are used for this purpose in north west Africa and sassafras leaves are used for the same purpose in the Creole cookery of Louisiana.

It just happens that Louisiana Creole cookery is, at its heart, an admixture of French and African cookery traditions with a few bits and pieces of native Arawak culture thrown in to the bargain. One of the mainstays of Creole cookery is the Gumbo a rich stew made with seafood, sausages and meat that, typically is either thickened with okra (from West Africa) or with sassafras leaves (filé powder) as it's most commonly known.

The use of filé powder is always thought to be a native Arawak tradition (which it is)... But what made the use of dried and powdered sassafras leaves so acceptable. From the African slave population it's possible to see that the use of sassafras as a thickener echoed the use of baobab leaves back home, it gave them an echo of their lost homeland.

But what about the French colonialists? Could it be that the use of sassafras leaves also gave them an echo of their homeland? Perhaps the easy adoption of sassafras leaves as a thickener in stews also provided them with a taste of home, reminding them of the use of linden leaves in their homeland. A practice that subsequently fell almost completely out of use in France until the second world war.

We may never know for certain, but these are potentially intriguing parallels coming together from three different cultures are fascinating nonetheless. They also allow us to expand our knowledge in terms of how to use linden trees in our own cooking.

No longer do we just have to make linden tea out of the blossoms or spring salads out of the very youngest leaves. The tree as a whole becomes a source of food almost year round: the young leaves can be eaten in a salad. Slightly older leaves can be shredded and added as a green and a thickener to soups and stews. The spring sap can be brewed into a mead or drunk as a cordial. The flowers themselves can be turned into a cordial or a wine. The flowers can also be dried and then brewed into linden tea (you can find these and many other recipes for wild ingredients at the Wild Food Recipes Directory.

The older leaves can be dried and made into a flour that can be baked, or can be used as a thickener for stews and porridges. It's even possible to make the mature fruit (nuts as they're colloquially called into a coffee substitute) and a mix of the immature fruit and the dried flowers can be pounded into a paste that tastes very much like chocolate (here is a description of and a Recipe for Linden Fruit Chocolate (that is, a chocolate substitute made from linden fruit) . A little research and some comparison with other cultures can reveal truly remarkable uses for even the most commonplace of wild plants.

Indeed, recent research has revealed that linden leaves may even be beneficial when added to flour as they contain a high percentage of invert sugars. As a result they are readily metabolized by those suffering from diabetes and can be an useful addition to diabetic recipes.