Haitian Recipes - Global Kitchen Travels (2024)

FAQs

Haitian Recipes - Global Kitchen Travels? ›

The national dish of Haiti is Soup Joumou which is traditionally enjoyed on Haitian Independence Day, January 1. It's made of squash, beef, pasta and root vegetables and is a symbol of the freedom Haiti gained in 1804.

The national dish of Haiti is Soup Joumou which is traditionally enjoyed on Haitian Independence Day, January 1. It's made of squash, beef, pasta and root vegetables and is a symbol of the freedom Haiti gained in 1804.

Soupe joumou, the national dish of Haiti, is a unique blend of West African Scotch bonnet peppers, New World squash and classic French pot-au-feu. After defeating Napoleon's army in 1803, the formerly enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue declared their independence on Jan.

Evening meals are simple affairs, often a bowl of porridge or soup. But just as often people purchase fritay (take-out) from street vendors. Offerings include fried plantain, griot (fried pork) and even barbequed chicken.

Haitian cuisine consists of cooking traditions and practices from Haiti. It is a Creole cuisine that originates from a blend of several culinary styles that populated the western portion of the island of Hispaniola, namely African, French, indigenous Taíno, Spanish and Arab influences.

For breakfast in Haiti, you'll find food similar to what a Haitian would eat all day long – plantains, seafood, and sometimes even spaghetti! In addition to plantains, coconut milk is also a primary ingredient in many Haitian recipes. There's a particular Haitian dessert that makes good use of it called blancmange.

The seeds contain hypoglycin B and are always poisonous. An important factor seems to be the nutritional status of the person consuming ackee, since diagnosed patients often present chronic malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies. Ackee trees proliferate in Haiti, especially in the Northern province.

Haitians generally do not eat yogurt, cottage cheese, or runny egg yolks. Drink lots of water and homemade fruit juices, coffee in the morning, and tea only when sick. Food prohibitions are related to particular diseases and life stages.

Another common breakfast is spaghetti - that's right - but not as you know it. Haitian breakfast spaghetti is served with ketchup, mayonnaise, an egg and a banana.

Common Christmas Foods

Common foods include rice with congo peas or djon djon (mushrooms), fried accra, tassot cabrit (fried goat), chicken, pumpkin soup, fried banana, and griot. Griot is a pork dish marinated in orange juice for four hours and seasoned with various herbs.

How many meals a day do Haitians eat? ›

Putting aside what exactly constitutes a 'meal', popular class Haitians have five culturally appropriate moments during the day when they may expect to eat something. Each moment has corresponding foods, prevailing cooking methods, and place where the food is typically cooked and/or procured.

Most Haitians normally indulge in a diet of consisting of rice, corn, millet, yams and beans. A popular side dish used is something called the piklis; a pickled cabbage dish with crrot and scotch bonnet pepper soaked in pepper.

Popular vegetables include breadfruit, spinach, chayote, plantains, potato, yams, yucca, malanga, spinach, watercress, carrots, okra, celery, jute leaves, onions and garlic. Rice is a major staple in Haitian cuisine.

These Haitians had created the first independent nation in the Caribbean. (The others were colonized, or ruled, by countries like Spain and France.) Haiti was also the second democracy in the Western Hemisphere (after the United States), and the first Black republic—or a government not led by a monarch—in the world.

One thing that sets them apart from other Caribbean islands is their love of strong spices. Many dishes are built on a pesto base, while others are built on green onions, garlic, thyme, peppers, and parsley. Starchy foods are among the most common Haitian staples.

On January 1, Haitians both at home and in the diaspora eat this soup to celebrate the first successful slave rebellion that transferred political power to its freed slave majority.

For much of its history and up to the present day, Haiti has been prevailingly a Christian country, primarily Roman Catholic, although in practice often profoundly modified and influenced through syncretism.