🇭🇹 Haiti
Soup joumouHaitian pumpkin soup
Haiti's pumpkin soup of squash (giraumon), beef, vegetables, plantains and pasta, spiced and eaten on 1 January, Independence Day, as the first meal of the year.
Origin and history
Soup joumou is Haiti's pumpkin soup, eaten on 1 January, Independence Day, as the first meal of the year. Enslaved Haitians cooked it for their French enslavers but were barred from eating it; after 1804 it became a symbol of freedom. UNESCO inscribed it on its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2021.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 8 servings
- Total time
- 3 h
- Hands-on
- 1 h
Ingredients
- 900 g2 lb beef chuck, in 4 cm (1.5 in) chunks, some fat left on
- 125 ml1/2 cup epis (Haitian seasoning paste), made of parsley, scallion, garlic, onion, green pepper, thyme, lime juice and a little habanero, blended
- 1 kg2.2 lb giraumon, calabaza or kabocha squash, peeled, seeded, cubed
- 2 tbsp oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 celery stalks, chopped
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2.5 l2.5 quarts beef or chicken broth, or water
- 3 sprigs thyme
- 3 whole cloves
- 1 whole habanero or Scotch bonnet chile, left uncut, or slit once for more heat
- 3 carrots, peeled, in chunks
- 3 potatoes, peeled, in chunks
- 1 turnip, peeled, in chunks
- 1/4 small green cabbage, in wedges
- 1 green plantain, optional; peeled, in rounds
- 225 g8 oz rigatoni or other short pasta
- salt and black pepper, to taste
- lime juice, to finish, optional
Method
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1. Toss the beef with the epis and marinate for at least 1 hour, or overnight in the fridge.
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2. Put the squash in a pot with just enough water to cover, simmer for 20 to 25 minutes until very soft, then blend to a smooth purée with a little of its cooking water.
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3. Heat the oil in a large heavy pot and brown the beef in batches. Add the onion and celery and cook for 5 minutes, then stir in the tomato paste for a minute.
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4. Add the broth, thyme, cloves and the whole chile. Bring to a boil, skim, and simmer covered for about 1 hour, until the beef is tender.
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5. Stir in the squash purée, then add the carrots, potatoes, turnip and plantain. Simmer for 20 minutes.
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6. Add the cabbage and cook 10 minutes until the vegetables are tender, then season with salt and pepper.
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7. Add the pasta directly to the simmering soup (or cook it apart and add it to the bowls) and cook until just tender, 8 to 10 minutes, adding hot water if the soup gets too thick.
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8. Remove the thyme stems, cloves and the chile, add a squeeze of lime if you like, and serve hot.
Notes
- Soup joumou is eaten on 1 January, Haitian Independence Day, as the first meal of the year. Under slavery the soup was reserved for the enslavers while the enslaved cooked it; after independence in 1804 it was claimed as a symbol of freedom. UNESCO inscribed it on the Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2021.
- It is not a cream soup: the squash thickens a meat-and-vegetable soup that also holds pasta and often plantain. What varies by cook is the vegetables, the pasta and whether the squash is puréed or left in chunks.
- If you cannot find giraumon, use calabaza, kabocha or butternut squash.
- Cooking the pasta apart and adding it at serving keeps leftovers from going mushy.
- Epis keeps up to a week in the fridge; the squash purée two days.
- Many sources say the original soup was vegetarian; this recipe, like most modern ones, includes beef, with a heavy vegetable proportion.
Adapted from UNESCO, Joumou soup, America's Test Kitchen, How to make soup joumou, and Al Jazeera, UNESCO adds Haiti's freedom soup.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.