Maggi Seasoning

[Suzanne F]

Oh yes, I can taste it!

[hjshorter]

Love Parsley

Where can I get some of that?

[Peter B Wolf]

Love Parsley

Where can I get some of that?

Ask a "Brit"

[elyse]

Love Parsley

Where can I get some of that?

SUCH a hard time not cracking jokes.

[wesza]

SHHHH ! Seceret use of "MAGGIE". My first experience of the insiduios secret use of maggi, came about to my well trained experienced pallete, caused by having had to taste to many things I don't like , overwhelm flavors, or are just too salty. Maggi was one of these tastes. I respected that somehow the Swiss needed something they could sell to the asian market besides Watches, since Cheese wasn't popular, so they resorted to maggi. When I visited my Vietmanesse friends home for dinner, I noticed my dipping sauce was a slightly different color then my hosts. But being polite made no comment. However after dipping and tasting I was surprised that it tasted like maggi. I commented on this to my host, who immediately tried my sauce, appropiately with his finger, said yuck, this isn't ,"Noc Nam". His mother suddenly got a red face. It seems that she was accustomed to serving maggi , in place off "Noc Nam" at their resturant in Saigon, as special soy sauce to foreigners, who weren't pleased with taste of fish sauce.. So she served it to honor her visitor. Her son told her that I loved "Noc Nam" and she brought out a bottle from her special stock to serve me. It was called "Phu-Quoc", Meranimex Viet-Nam. Manufactured on a island, in the river that had been bombed and not rebuilt. It was terrific and now i do love "Noc Nam". According to her this custom of serving Maggi in place of the Noc Nam began after the French left and the Americans arrived. She said that they thought it was supposed to taste like japanesse soy sauce. Guess what I actually once tried it when I brought home some sushi, but the soy sauce was left out, it's acceptable, especially if mixed with wasabi. Irwin

[fifi]

To quote Jin... GAH

Maggi should never be used as a primary ingredient, especially in a dipping sauce. It is an addative. Nothing more.

[caroline]

Well here's another take. According to the venerable and generally well researched Book of Miso by Shurtleff and Aoyagi, Albert Langgardt, a German who taught at the Tokyo Imperial University in the 1870s, studied shoyu production with some care and went back to Germany and tried to reproduce the seasoning. Hence Maggi (according to them a version of the name of the Mogi family who founded Kikkoman though this is a different derivation from one earlier on this thread).

The general story makes perfect sense. The Brits, the Americans and the Germans spent much of the nineteenth century trying to emulate Asian sauces whether fish sauce or shoyu. Hence we have Worcestershire, ketchup, Maggi, etc.

And I don't see Maggi being dislodged from the cooking of Mexico (where I happen to live) any time soon. Indeed fajitas restaurants here use it as the main seasoning.

Rachel Laudan

[wesza]

To quote Jin... GAH

Maggi should never be used as a primary ingredient, especially in a dipping sauce. It is an addative. Nothing more.

Fifi: I Had alway's previously had a even bigger "GAAAAHH", then you about the stuff, except with the Sushi, in front of me, the Wasabi and Ginger ready to go, I had no alternative. Tried it and it wasn't acceptable. Those inscrutable Swiss, managed to sneak one into the Orient? Since your interested in trying new things, have a maggi taste comparison with soy sauces and maggi. Blind finger licking tasting, I just tried it together with 6 soy sauces, was surprised. Realized that I didn't really like any of them by themselves. Irwin

[Peter B Wolf]

".......Albert Langgardt, a German who taught at the Tokyo Imperial University in the 1870s, studied shoyu production with some care and went back to Germany and tried to reproduce the seasoning.  Hence Maggi (according to them a version of the name of the Mogi family who founded Kikkoman ....)........"

This may be a story acceptable to many.

But the factual history is still in the URL I provided earlier:

http://www.maggi.ch/de/aboutus/history.asp

Trust me. In it you can also read the reason why this product came about, as it had 'for-runners' in the form of dry soup mixes, literally thought to provide nutritional food for poor factory workers.

Mr. Maggi, had a Swiss Mother and an Italian Father, hence the name (quite common in Italy).

He himself and another Swiss developed these products (soup mixes - not the liquid) because of hunger in the populace.

Back in Germany, the bottle and its inards, always was considered stuff the poor used. The 'class system' of the '20s and '30s in that country sort of clarified who would or would not have Maggi on their dining room table.

As a matter of fact, the ones who had 'dining rooms' bought no Maggi, the ones who ate in the Kitchen, most likely would.

You still can find it in public Restaurants, only these places would then be called "Kneipen" or "Gaststaetten". It sits with the salt and pepper shaker, sugar shaker, saccharin and whatever else in a 'menage'. Seldom found in a white tablecloth establishment.

So there