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Haiti's traditional joumou soup: a tasty reminder of freedom
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Relatives gather to eat a traditional soup on January 01, 2022 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (AFP/Richard Pierrin)
A
mix of meat, vegetables, pasta and the squash for which it is named, Haitians enjoy joumou soup every January 1 to celebrate the new year and their country's independence.
Before it became a symbol of Haiti's freedom, the soup was one of oppression.
The enslaved Haitians who grew the 'giraumon' or turban squash, the key ingredient, were forbidden from eating the dish. It was reserved solely for the French plantation masters.
But on January 1, 1804, when the first black-led republic was born, Marie-Claire Heureuse Felicite -- the wife of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a leader of Haiti's revolution and the independent nation's first ruler -- chose to serve the soup.
Cooking joumou soup "was a way to mark those years of deprivation and oppression, and to claim victory over the colonizers," says Port-au-Prince resident Nathalie Cardichon as she buys ingredients for the national dish at the market.
"That's the meaning of this soup," she adds.
Traditionally, serving the dish is also a time of reunion for families. But for many, 2022 will be different.
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