Maggi is salty. Whether in a bottle on the condiment caddy or in a foil wrap at the edge of the plate, it offers a potent dose of sodium to many West African dishes. Not that Maggi is an African brand; the original was developed by one Julius Maggi in Switzerland, in 1863; today, under the Nestlé umbrella, Maggi products are distributed around the world.
"The original African Maggi," as the restaurant manager called it, is much less overbearing. That pale brown granular substance atop my lafidi (Lah-fee-dee, aka fouti) — a rice plate also presented with a dollop of okra sauce and the familiar, fearsome chile pepper, and laced throughout with palm oil — supplied a textural change of pace and a certain piquancy without excessive saltiness. Its source is the néré, a locust bean tree whose seeds are cooked, fermented, and in many cases dried and pulverized. Of its many names in various West African languages, soumbala might be the most familiar. Another key to the excellence of this deceptively simple-looking dish was the very-well-fluffed rice itself.
Cross Culture Kitchen is the transplanted, rebranded incarnation of Salimata. Late in 2013, that restaurant and the neighboring storefront mosque were shuffled off from the gentrifying stretch of lower Frederick Douglass Blvd.; in early 2020, the now vacant lot has yet to be developed.
Also shown, from a recent visit: cassava leaf with beef, one of three Guinean sauces available that day; the view from my dining area, six blocks south.
Cross Culture Kitchen
62 East 116th St. (Park-Madison Aves.), Manhattan
212-860-3900
