Soup Joumou (Pumpkin Soup)

December 29, 2014

90 minutes

easy

serves 6-8

Soup joumou (pumpkin soup), oh how I love thee. Soup joumou is a dish that is near and dear to the hearts of many Haitians. When the end of December rolls around and the days keep getting closer to January 1st; the excitement and anticipation keeps growing and growing. Why you ask??? Because we will be eating soup joumou come New Year’s Day, which is also Haitian Independence day.

I don’t know the complete history on how Haitians gained their independence so I’m not going to pretend like I do and give you misinformation. Now what I do know about it is this: The Haitian slaves made pumpkin soup for their masters but were never allowed to have any so when they gained their independence from the French they celebrated by having soup and so it became a tradition to have pumpkin soup on their Independence day.

In my recipe, I used Kabocha also known as butternut squash along with pumpkin but that is totally optional. My mom has always made it with both so that is what I do as well, you can definitely just use pumpkin. I made mine with beef but you can do the same process with chicken or without, the world is your oyster and you can do whatever you like (in my T.I. voice)

Please understand that you don’t have to follow this recipe exactly. If there is an ingredient that you are not fond of, by all means eliminate it. Cooking soup joumou for Haitian Independence Day should be a fun task; so if you think this recipe is complicated eliminate some ingredients as I stated earlier. You can just use this recipe and video as a guide on how to make this soup to your own liking.