Maggi!
Check out Aurora Almendral’s fabulous radio piece about Maggi, that most ubiqutous of seasonings. It immediately brings Rwanda to my mind — and it turns out I’m not alone.
Aurora Almendral finds the most wonderful voice in Divine Muragijimana, a Burundian bereft of Maggi in her first few years here. She spent those years in West Virginia, where, she says, “There was no Maggi cubes possible. And the cilantro they use there was crap.” (As a native West Virginian, I can attest to both those things.)
Divine is convinced Maggi is African. But Poles think its Polish. And the Aurora, who is Filipino, has always thought of it asfrom the Philippines.
So where does this spice claimed by the world come from?
You’ll have to give a listen to the piece, which aired on PRI’s The World and was produced with Feet in Two Worlds, an awesome radio production house focused on stories of immigration. But more on them tomorrow.
