Citizens! Today I post a recipe in honor of a Masonic Brother of Mine, a Haitian émigré and patriot, a musical prodigy – he and his wife performed together at a recent school fundraiser at the San Jose, CA Haitian Church! Listening to him singing and performing inspired Me to post today’s recipe for pwa joumou – Haitian Independence Soup!
Soup Joumou is a soup native to Haitian cuisine made from squash, beef, and a mix of vegetables and spices. This hearty soup is not only a culinary delight but also a symbol of Haitian independence, traditionally consumed on January 1st to celebrate the country’s liberation from French colonial rule in 1804.
The dish is renowned for its rich, comforting flavor and vibrant color, making it a beloved staple in Haitian cuisine. While the main ingredients typically include squash, beef, and vegetables like carrots, potatoes, and turnips, variations exist, adding to its widespread appeal and regional adaptations.
The dish gets its name ‘pumpkin soup’ from the main ingredient – squash. When Haiti was colonized by France in the 1600s and 1700s, enslaved Africans were forced to cultivate the squash that forms the base of the beef soup known as joumou, which means squash or pumpkin in Creole – ‘pwa’ is Creole for ‘soup’.
Due to trade practices, pumpkin was shipped abroad or consumed by the property owning landed class, the African and Indigenous Haitian population toiling on plantations were forbidden from eating it themselves.
When the Haitian Revolution ended with Haiti’s liberation from French colonial rule on Jan. 1, 1804, Haitians celebrated by consuming soup joumou all day, relishing the taste of freedom. 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.
Once the soup is ready, it’s typically eaten as breakfast, lunch, and dinner on New Year’s Day and consumed into the next day as part of Ancestry Day a holiday honoring Haitian revolutionaries on January 2.
The soup is traditionally cooked with winter squashes such as the turban squash. The meat is marinated and simmered in a saucepan until tender while the squash is cooked, and pureed, often using a blender or food processor, to create a smooth, thick consistency.
This pureed squash is then added to the simmering broth and meat mixture along with pieces of beef and soup bones, potato, and vegetables such as malanga, leeks, celery, radishes, carrots, green cabbage, habanero pepper and onions.
Haitian epis seasoning, salt, and seasoning along with lime juice, garlic, parsley and other herbs and spices are then added. Some Haitians add thin pasta such as vermicelli and macaroni and a small amount of butter or oil. The soup is always served hot and is usually accompanied by sliced French bread which is dipped in the soup.
In December 2021, Haiti obtained official recognition for the knowledge, know-how and practices pertaining to the consumption of soup joumou on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. It was Haiti’s first inclusion on the list.
An in-depth article on https://www.smithsonianmag.com/ goes into further detail regarding the history – I offer this excerpted version to follow!
Growing up as a Haitian American, January 1 has always been more than just the start of the new year for me. As a child, waking up on New Year’s Day, I practically floated through the air to the aromas of soup joumou, or Haitian pumpkin soup, resting in one of the decorative bowls my mother reserved for the annual tradition.
Every New Year’s Day, Haitians around the world consume soup joumou as a way to commemorate Haitian Independence Day. On January 1, 1804, Haitians declared independence from French colonial rule following the Haitian Revolution that began in 1791.
Soup joumou is a savory, orange-tinted soup that typically consists of calabaza squash—a pumpkin-like squash native to the Caribbean—that’s cooked and blended as the soup’s base. To that base, cooks add beef, carrots, cabbage, noodles, potatoes and other fresh vegetables, herbs and spices.
“[Soup joumou] is freedom in every bowl,” says Fred Raphael, a Haitian chef and co-owner of two Haitian restaurants in the New York City metropolitan area. “[Haitians] fought for unity, just the same way we get all these different ingredients that come together and create this taste.”
Haiti, then called Saint-Domingue, formally came under French occupation in 1697 after Spain ceded the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola to France, according to Bertin Louis Jr., a cultural anthropologist at the University of Kentucky.
To sustain the island’s colonial economy—which predominantly centered on the production and export of crops like sugar, coffee and tobacco—French plantation owners captured and enslaved nearly 800,000 Africans as a labor source on the island. Saint-Domingue, by the early to mid-18th century, grew to be the most profitable colony in the world.
During the colonial era throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, enslaved Africans cultivated squash, the crop at the center of soup joumou. According to Louis, enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue were prohibited from eating soup joumou, despite being the ones who prepared, cooked and served it to white French enslavers and colonizers.
The soup was a symbol of status, and by banning enslaved Africans from consuming it, the French were able to assert their superiority, challenge the humanity of Black Africans, uphold white supremacy and exert colonial violence, Louis says.
Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture holding a printed copy of the Haitian Constitution of 1801. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Following the nearly 13-year struggle of the Haitian Revolution led by revolutionaries like Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, Haitians declared independence from French control and celebrated their liberation by eating soup joumou.
It is said that on January 1, 1804, Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité Bonheur Dessalines, the first empress of Haiti and Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ wife, distributed the soup to freed Haitians. Over two centuries later, the tradition of eating the decadent soup continues in celebration of a large-scale slave revolt that created the world’s first free Black republic.
“The soup represents the claiming and reconfiguration of a colonial dish into an anti-colonial symbol of resistance and also Black freedom, specifically Haitian freedom,” Louis says.
For chef and restaurateur Raphael, it was a no-brainer to include soup joumou on the menus at both of the restaurants he co-owns—First Republic Lounge and Restaurant in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Rebèl Restaurant and Bar in New York’s Lower East Side.
“You don’t have a Haitian restaurant if you don’t make soup joumou,” he says. In the near-decade since First Republic Lounge and Restaurant opened—Rebèl Restaurant and Bar opened several years later, in 2020—Raphael has made it a tradition to create a space for Haitian and non-Haitian community members to come together and enjoy the dish.
“We make it a practice in both restaurants to give [soup joumou] away for free the night of December 31 as we bring in the new year,” Raphael says. “We usually make a pot of vegetarian soup with no meat, and then there’s another pot with meat, and anyone can come in and enjoy that.”
Combined, the restaurants usually see a turnout of about 300 to 500 guests. Raphael and his colleagues spend days preparing for the event, which begins in the evening of New Year’s Eve and goes until the early morning hours of New Year’s Day.
For Raphael, the soup presents an opportunity to educate people and bridge cultural gaps, whether that is non-Haitians trying the soup and learning the history behind it or Haitian Americans who have never been to Haiti or haven’t been back in years feeling more connected to the island.
“We make sure that [soup joumou] is served properly, because we want you to see the pride in making this,” Raphael says. “It’s sweat and tears, and a lot of folks have died to ensure that we have the freedom we have today.”
Once the soup is ready, it’s typically eaten as breakfast, lunch and dinner on New Year’s Day and consumed into the next day as part of Ancestors’ Day—a holiday honoring Haitian revolutionaries—on January 2.
In the 219 years since Haiti declared independence, soup joumou has gone through various changes, with different families in different regions in Haiti and around the world putting their own twists on the dish.
For example, modern versions of the soup typically include pasta like rigatoni or penne, but it’s unlikely that was a core part of the soup back in the 1800s, Raphael says.
With the rise of social media, Fleurimond says people can easily share recipes and pictures of their versions of soup joumou, and she’s seen many online debates about the “right way” to make it. Some people say soup joumou is only soup joumou if it has meat in it—though it’s said the original version was vegetarian.
People also argue about the correct pasta and vegetables to put in the soup, but Fleurimond sees the debates as comical and ultimately arbitrary. “Yes, there’s a base, but at the end of the day, [soup joumou] does vary from region to region and household to household, because people use what ingredients they have access to,” she says.
For both Fleurimond and Raphael (and myself), the soup is usually paired with a side of Haitian bread, a hard dough bread with a chewy texture, at family gatherings. Amid ongoing social and political crises in Haiti, Raphael says the message and history behind soup joumou matter more than ever.
Historians and scholars have connected many of Haiti’s plights in the decades following its liberation, as well as difficulties faced in recent years, to the fact that foreign powers went on to exploit and drain the island’s wealth for generations after the country overthrew slavery and declared independence in 1804.
After Haiti broke free from French rule, its government was forced to pay former French slaveholders and their descendants about $560 million in today’s dollars over the course of 64 years—money that would have amounted to $21 billion if it remained in Haiti’s economy.
Today, Haiti struggles with gang violence, a cholera outbreak, poverty, acute hunger and continued foreign intervention attempts opposed by many Haitians. As a result of these issues, many have immigrated, moved out of and fled the country in recent decades and years, with Haitians now spanning the globe. Fleurimond says soup joumou allows Haitians around the world to come together and celebrate a common history.
“We need a revolution in Haiti right now because of what’s going on in terms of political and social turmoil,” Fleurimond says. “Whenever January 1 comes around, [Haitians] have this one anchor point of the soup.
It reminds us of what we’ve done, what’s still possible if we do come together and also that sense of community that’s authentically felt. It’s more than just the household that’s making the soup—it also spreads to everyone in your community making the soup, and every Haitian in the world that is making this soup. This just shows we really are one.”
TFD – being the Khan of Carnivores! – firmly adheres to the gospel that meat BELONGS in joumou, and I call for both beef stew meat and oxtail for added beefy savor. The oxtail adds not just flavor, but extra body to the soup that I believe is completely required!
I mostly follow established norms in making My delicious version of joumou, though I have made two significant edits – the first is to replace Kosher salt with my preferred saline flavoring – Knorr Aromat. Aromat adds umami as well as needed salinity and you can easily purchase My preferred European version from Amazon here.
The second is that in place of beef stock cubes, I prefer to use beef demiglace – you can buy an excellent brand here.
Citizens, this is a recipe worthy of serving as the first course of a Haitian feast, with a main course of Haitian pork griot, truly a meal worthy of song, story and LEGEND!
Battle on – the Generalissimo
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The Hirshon Haitian Spicy Beef, Pumpkin And Vegetable Soup – Pwa Joumou
Ingredients
- Meat Prep:
- 1 lb. beef stew meat
- 1 lb. oxtail
- 6 Tbsp. lime juice (freshly squeezed, divided)
- ***
- 2 1/2 cups Hirshon Epis marinade:
- See link in recipe post
- ***
- Spices:
- 1 (2-inch) whole fresh green Scotch bonnet chile or habanero chile
- 1 Tbsp. Knorr Aromat (TFD change - original was kosher salt)
- 2 tsp. garlic powder
- 2 tsp. onion powder
- 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
- 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
- 6 whole cloves
- ***
- Squash:
- 2 lb. kabocha squash
- 2 cups bottled water to purée squash)
- ***
- Vegetables and Stock:
- 3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes (peeled and diced large)
- 3 medium carrots (peeled and chopped)
- 3 ribs celery, with leaves (chopped)
- 1 medium turnip (peeled and diced)
- 2 radishes, diced
- 2 leeks (white and light green part only, cut in 1/2 lengthwise and rinse the mud out from between the layers, then chopped)
- 2 Tbsp. Beef demiglace (TFD change - original was 2 OXO beef cubes)
- 1 (12-inch) parsley sprig
- 1 (6-inch) thyme sprig
- 4 cups bottled water
- ***
- Last Additions:
- 1 small Savoy cabbage (chopped into small ribbons)
- 1 Tbsp. salted butter (TFD prefers KerryGold)
- 1/2 cup small pasta (such as ditali or anellini)
Instructions
- Meat Prep: Place the meat and oxtail in a big bowl and toss with part of the lime juice. Allow to rest for 15 minutes then rinse well.
- Marinade & Spices: Assemble all the ingredients for the epis marinade. Prepare and blend the marinade ingredients as directed. Pour the marinade into over the beef and oxtail in the large bowl. Add the spices and stir well. Refrigerate for a few hours, or overnight for best flavor.
- Cook and Purée the Squash: Wash the squash well, split in half, removed the seeds and cut each half into three wedges.
- After marinating the beef, place the it with the marinade into a very large pot and place the wedges on top. Next, add 6 cups of water, and put the burner on medium high. Bring to a boil and simmer until the squash is cooked.
- Remove the squash when ready and allow to cool. Scrape the flesh from the skin and place into a blender. Add 2 cups of water and purée until smooth. Pour into the pot and stir.
- Add Vegetables and More Water: Add the vegetables next. If using the Scotch bonnet pepper, add it at this time. Follow with 4 more cups of water, demiglace, the thyme, and stir well. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes, covered. Stir occasionally so it doesn’t stick.
- Next add the remaining lime juice. Taste and season with more salt, which will definitely be needed at this point. Add water if desired, then taste and season again. Remove the Scotch bonnet pepper and thyme.
- Final Additions: Cabbage, Butter and Pasta:
- Now add the chopped cabbage, butter and finally, the pasta. Depending on the shape and size of the pasta you use, you’ll have to cook the soup according to when the pasta is ready. Don’t overcook the pasta as it will continue to cook as it stays in the hot pot. Note: it may also take longer than directed on the package because it’s not being cooked in boiling water.
- Remove from heat when ready and serve with your choice of bread.
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