Haiti@209

 It was over 200 years ago that my ancestors united to secure their freedom and that of other Africans in Haiti. The fighting started from capture in West Africa. The struggle was not just political.

The revolution started in 1791. And even before freedom was won, Africans made known that their future freedom was going to be wholistic. That freedom had to include right to healthy food. As slaves, Africans were not allowed to eat certain foods deemed “reserved” for French and other Europeans. Some of these foods were corn, beans and squash, all first harvested by the Native Indian population. The diet of slaves, of course, consisted of foods thrown away by their masters. Foods such as tripe, intestines and other garbage that was not fit for Europeans to eat. Although Africans balanced their diet by growing small gardens, that was not suffice; especially considering the kind of labor they had to perform on a daily basis. Europeans were also masters of the food.

But on Dec. 31, 1803, a day before our complete independence from the French was inaugurated, Marie-Claire Heureusse Felicite (later Empress and wife of Dessalines) made squash soup. She made it to commemorate the history that these soldiers had shared while fighting; having claimed victory over eating the banned foods.  She chose squash because there was a history the soldiers all shared with this vegetable.  Some African soldiers had taken great pride in “pilfering” this vegetable from white gardens. We know this history was important to forming a new nation. It was a way to keep the memories of that period alive. And it was a story that further marked out freedom and break from French slavery.

This soup was also a slap to the French who used it as stuffing in pigs, turkeys and other birds. Turning squash into a soup was further upsetting to the French. This was because African cuisine, as slaves, was mostly soup style. Cooking in one pot meant everything went into that pot and turned out into a soup eventually. So soup or “all boil” foods was considered as African food. Felicite had now claimed squash as African food (over 70% of the Haitian population was African born at the time of slavery.) Her choice had let the French know, way before Steven Biko, that we “eat what we like.” And that we were no longer limited by their laws to eat foods they considered garbage.

Felicite became the mother of Haitian cuisine. Haitian cuisine was born out of politics. The Africans rejected the sorts of foods limited to them during slavery and began adopting foods that defined them as free and independent peoples. Not all of these foods were borrowed by the French considering how much pork was preferred by the French, but is only an occasional dish in Haiti. Fufu became a staple for Southerners.  As a Southerner, Felicite grew up eating Fufu, similar to the way the Akans eat it. But Fufu is a luxury food during a war. It takes time to prepare Fufu. Fighting a war means you need foods that cook quick and are easy to get. Okra, Chaka, mai Moulin, bouyon, swas pwa, Pwa Kongo, Pitimi, legumes all came to form Haitian national dishes. There are well over 10 national, and that’s a conservative estimate.

Choosing to use squash at this moment, and making into a soup tells us a bit about Felicite. We know she was bold. She was a risk taker. She did not hide behind authority nor did she believe the French her superior. She is one of the most understudied and most misunderstood women in Haitian history. After her divorce from Dessalines her named was “soiled” (by his friends and later by white historians trying to create an anti Dessalines bias in their books) as having protected whites from the Massacre.  There is no historical proof to that. She was “constructed” into his antithesis. But this is the same woman who had fed and nursed the revolutionaries. She kept her dignity and refused to pardon Dessalines for this breech even after his death. She preferred to live and die in poverty than take money for having been solely the wife of Dessalines.

Squash soup is eaten by all Haitians mostly on January 1, to honor our ancestors and to celebrate our independence. It is one of our national dishes, but eaten only once a year.

A Haitian new year starts off with soup on Independence Day. It brings good luck and a reminder of what we fought so much for...freedom!