Culture & Travel

Notes from the Ital Grove: September

By Gregor Altman 8/26/04

Go with the Greens at Maroons

Lurking near the southern edge of trendy Chelsea in Manhattan, a Jamaican gem has been gaining steam. Opened nearly five years ago on a quiet street of 8th Avenue, Maroons has now tripled in size after expanding from its original space. The restaurant is owned by Mitchell, who grew up in Manchester (on the southern coast of Jamaica), and Arlene Weston, who is the executive chef and a descendent of the original Maroons. Her family came from Mandeville, also in Manchester, close to where the Maroons established their breakaway free community. The Maroons were escaped African slaves who fiercely defied all attempts to subdue them. Their namesake was derived from the Spanish word "Cimarron,” meaning ‘wild’ or ‘untamed’. They’ve contributed to the island’s rich cuisine, and are believed to have originated the ‘jerking’ technique that has become a world-renowned way of flavoring chicken and other meats.

Cujo’s Jerk Chicken (served with white corn grits and collard greens), and Boston Beach Jerk Pork (served with string beans and ‘food’) are on the menu but we had gone to Maroons to sample their vegetarian selections. We started out with a couple of their vegetable patties. A Jamaican ‘patty’ is actually a sort of pastry, kind of like a flattish empanada. These were filled with a mildly spicy paste made of carrots, broccoli, scallions, and celery, garnished with greens and a multicolored assortment of diced fresh peppers.

For our main course we tried the batter-fried sole, which came with mashed potatoes and a delectable sautéed spinach that was the clear winner among the side dish selections. Other sides were callaloo (a green that is a cross between spinach and collard greens, prepared saltier than the Maroons’ spinach), fried plantains, and a collection of authentic starchy vegetables (that included boiled cassava and edoes) that came with the Food Boiled Green Bananas. This term ‘food’ is the term commonly used in Jamaica for basic filling staple foodstuffs such as potato, yam, dasheen, banana, dumpling, etc. We also got the Maroons' vegetable stew, which included carrots, red beans, scallions, sweet peppers, green beans, potatoes, and a type of dumplings (something I hadn’t expected). This dish could have used more seasoning, but it was complemented nicely when I added some Jonkanoo pepper sauce. To polish things off, some of Maroons' hot bread pudding, based on an old traditional recipe, soothed the palate nicely.

Maroons is located at 244 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011. Tel: 212-206-8640.

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Gregor Altman is a longtime student and willing participant of explorations in exotic cultures and cuisines. He has gravitated to those which make use of hot spices and medicinal botanicals. Recent involvements include managing a natural food producer in New Mexico, and volunteering at a community supported agriculture (CSA) farm on Long Island, New York. He can be reached at gregornyc@earthlink.net.