North America contributed surprisingly few spices to the global spice trade. The USDA Forest Service notes that the entire New World gave us only three major spices: allspice, capsicum peppers, and vanilla. But beyond those headline names, the continent is home to a diverse group of lesser-known plants that Indigenous peoples and foragers have used as seasonings for centuries. Many of these are still foraged or cultivated today.
The Big Three: Allspice, Peppers, and Vanilla
These are the native spices that changed global cuisine. Allspice comes from a tree native to Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Its dried berries taste like a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, which is how it got its name. Vanilla is the fruit of an orchid native to Mexico, pollinated in the wild by specific native bees. Both were cultivated and traded by Mesoamerican peoples long before European contact.
Capsicum peppers are arguably the continent’s greatest spice contribution. Every chili pepper, from jalapeños to habaneros, descends from plants native to the Americas. The chiltepin, a tiny, fiercely hot wild pepper, grows natively as far north as Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, extending south through Mexico and Central America. It’s considered the wild ancestor of many cultivated pepper varieties and is still harvested from wild plants in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Indigenous groups dried and crushed these peppers long before they spread to kitchens worldwide.
Spicebush: North America’s Hidden Allspice
Spicebush is a shrub native to eastern North America, growing from southern Canada down through the Appalachian region. Its small red berries have a flavor often described as a cross between allspice and black pepper, with a complex, slightly floral warmth. Foragers sometimes call it “Appalachian allspice,” and many who try it start reaching for it instead of cinnamon and nutmeg.
The berries work well in both sweet and savory cooking. They pair naturally with apples and pears in pies and cobblers, make an excellent dry rub for chicken or pork, and can be ground with sugar to rim a cocktail glass. The flesh of the berry leans toward an allspice flavor, while the inner seed tastes more like black pepper. The twigs and leaves are also aromatic and can be steeped into tea. Spicebush isn’t commercially farmed on a large scale, but dried berries can be ordered from specialty foraging suppliers.
Sumac: A Native Sour Spice
Staghorn sumac and smooth sumac are both native to eastern and central North America. Their fuzzy, deep-red berry clusters have a tart, fruity flavor that comes primarily from malic acid (the same acid that makes green apples sour), along with citric and tartaric acids. The berries are dried and ground into a coarse red-purple powder.
If you’ve encountered sumac in Middle Eastern cooking, that’s a closely related Old World species. The North American varieties are used the same way: sprinkled over grilled meats, stirred into dressings, or steeped in cold water to make a lemonade-like drink that Indigenous peoples called “sumac-ade.” The key distinction for foragers is to use only the red-berried species. White-berried sumac (poison sumac) is a completely different, toxic plant that grows in swampy areas.
Sassafras: Flavorful but Regulated
Sassafras is a tree native to eastern North America whose root bark and leaves have a distinctive root beer flavor. The leaves, dried and ground into a fine powder called filé, are a traditional thickener and seasoning in Louisiana Creole gumbo. That use remains legal and common.
The root bark is a different story. It contains safrole, a compound the FDA restricts in food products due to concerns about its safety in large amounts. Under federal regulations, only safrole-free extracts of sassafras root bark can legally be used as food flavoring. The extraction process removes the oily fraction that contains safrole, leaving a purified aqueous extract approved for use in foods. So while old-fashioned sassafras root bark tea is technically off the commercial menu, filé powder and safrole-free sassafras extract are still widely available.
California Bay Laurel
California bay laurel is native to the Pacific coast, from southern Oregon through California. Its leaves look similar to Mediterranean bay leaves and serve the same culinary purpose, but they’re significantly more potent. The essential oil in California bay is dominated by a compound called umbellulone, which makes up about 37% of its oil and is entirely absent from Mediterranean bay. This means if you substitute California bay leaves one-for-one in a recipe calling for regular bay leaves, the flavor can be overpowering and slightly medicinal. Most cooks use about half a California bay leaf where they’d use a full Mediterranean one.
Anise Hyssop
Anise hyssop is a perennial herb native to the upper Midwest and Great Plains. Its leaves and flowers have a sweet, anise-like flavor driven by a compound called estragole, which makes up over 50% of its essential oil. Indigenous peoples used it as a tea and medicinal herb, and it’s now popular in herb gardens for both cooking and attracting pollinators.
The leaves can be used fresh or dried to flavor teas, baked goods, fruit salads, and cold drinks. The purple flower spikes are edible and make a striking garnish. It’s milder and sweeter than culinary anise or licorice root, which makes it versatile in desserts. The plant is easy to grow in most temperate climates and self-seeds readily.
Wintergreen
Wintergreen is a small, low-growing evergreen native to northeastern North America. Its leaves and bright red berries contain an essential oil that is almost entirely methyl salicylate, the same compound responsible for the familiar wintergreen flavor in candies, gum, and root beer. The oil content is remarkably concentrated, with methyl salicylate making up 97 to nearly 100% of the volatile compounds.
Indigenous peoples chewed the leaves for their refreshing flavor and mild pain-relieving properties (methyl salicylate is chemically related to aspirin). Wintergreen became a popular flavoring in early American soft drinks and remains a common ingredient in root beer. The leaves can be steeped fresh for tea, though the wintergreen flavor develops more fully if the leaves are first allowed to ferment slightly in warm water for a day or two before steeping.
Wild Ginger: Use With Caution
Wild ginger is a woodland plant native to eastern North America. Its root has a ginger-like aroma and was used by Indigenous peoples as a seasoning and medicine. It’s not botanically related to true ginger but earned its name from the similar smell and flavor of its rhizome.
There’s an important safety concern, though. Wild ginger belongs to a plant family that produces aristolochic acids, compounds linked to kidney damage and cancers of the upper urinary tract and bladder. The National Cancer Institute notes that exposure can occur through eating herbal or food products containing these acids and recommends avoiding herbal products that contain them. This makes wild ginger a plant better appreciated in the garden than in the kitchen, despite its long history of traditional use.
Other Native Seasonings Worth Knowing
- Juniper berries: Several juniper species are native across North America. The berries have a piney, slightly resinous flavor used in game meats, brines, and (famously) gin. Indigenous peoples across the continent used them as both food and medicine.
- Wild bergamot (bee balm): Native to much of North America, its leaves have a flavor reminiscent of oregano and thyme. It was widely used as a tea and seasoning by Indigenous groups.
- Bayberry: The wax-coated berries of native bayberry shrubs have a mild, aromatic flavor and were occasionally used as a seasoning in colonial New England cooking.
- Wild onions and ramps: Multiple species of wild alliums are native across the continent. Ramps, native to Appalachia and the upper Midwest, have become a celebrated seasonal ingredient with a pungent garlic-onion flavor.
North America’s native spice cabinet is smaller than Asia’s or even Africa’s, but it’s far from empty. The plants that grow here tend to reward foragers and gardeners more than grocery shoppers, since most never entered large-scale commercial cultivation. That’s slowly changing as interest in native foods and wild ingredients grows, with spicebush, sumac, and native peppers gaining wider recognition in restaurant kitchens and specialty markets.