The Haitian New Year's Day tradition of soup joumou or pumpkin soup is said to date back to January 1, 1804, the day Haitian slave and revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti’s independence from its French colonizers.
The Haitian New Year's Day tradition of soup joumou or pumpkin soup is said to date back to January 1, 1804, the day Haitian slave and revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti’s independence from its French colonizers.
WLRN
In Little Haiti, vendors sell squash and other ingredients needed to prepare soup joumou, a New Year s Day tradition in the Haitian community.
Two Haitian women are haggling over the cost of carrots and green squash along a sidewalk in Miami s Little Haiti neighborhood.
They re standing at Bernadette Dubreide s fruit and vegetable stand on Northeast Second Avenue. Regulars call her Madam Dubreide.
Just days before the New Year, Dubreide adds new offerings besides her usual bananas, oranges and sugar cane.
A separate fold-out table holds nearly all of the ingredients for Haitian pumpkin soup: cabbage, carrots, turnips, scotch bonnet peppers and green or yellow squash that must be just the right fleshy orange on the inside to be pureed for the base of the soup.