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Freedom Soup? There is Such a Thing!

Soup Joumou meme

First and foremost, I would like to wish all my fellow Haitians a Happy Independence Day. For those of you who didn’t know, January 1st mark the 210th year since Haiti became independent. FREEEEDOOOMMMM!! Which brings us to the famous soup joumou that EVERY Haitian has had at one point or another in their life. Like dude, it’s a tradition; you can’t mess around with traditions. You don’t question traditions. Especially in a Haitian home. You just go with it till you are old enough to decide whether or not you will continue with said traditions.
 
All my life I’ve been told that soup joumou is something you have on the first of the year. When I got a bit older, I found out it had to do with Haitians gaining their freedom. It was only recently that I was able to find out that soup joumou was a dish reserved solely for the rich slave masters and when the slaves gained their freedom, they celebrated it by having some of that delicious forbidden soup. Take that slave masters!!!
 
As I’m writing this up, I’ve already had my 3rd bowl of soup. I feel full and happy. A lot of you were wondering why this soup is so famous or what makes it so good? I believe it has to do with the sense of pride that comes along with knowing that THIS soup is what our ancestors shared on the first of the year to celebrate their victory. It also helps that is it freaking delicious!

Since moving out of my aunt’s house in 2005, we’ve missed out of the soup joumou binge. But this year my sister was kind enough to volunteer to make some for us. She went to bed late last night and woke up this morning to make us the amazing freedom soup. The awesome thing about soup joumou is that NO one makes it the same, but it all taste great. I even found a vegetarian version of the soup (not my cup of tea, I’m a meat lover baby!!). The golden color is achieved using squash. I won’t go into details on how it is made, but you can check out here for recipes. 
 

A couple of my Facebook friends were kind enough to let me use their pictures for your viewing pleasure. So I leave you all to the Freedom Soup and wish you a Happy New year with much success and happiness. 

soup joumou
Golden goodness all the way from Redeemer Haitian Baptist Church of Fort Myers!
soup joumou
Soup from my good friend here in Montreal
freedom soup
The masterpiece by my sister dear! 

So there you have it my lovelies, Haitian’s Freedom soup! We’ve made enough of it to last us the next two days! Does your family have special traditions that you follow? Ever wonder where they originated from? Love hearing from you guys!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Greg Mock says

    Soup Joumou… I’m gonna try it someday. Haiti sounds like it has sound a rich cultural heritage. I love that you say “Happy Independence Day” we need to do that in the U.S. or this trend of continued infringement of our Constitutional Rights will continue. By the way, I’m with you on “pass on the vegetarian dish… I’m a meat lover too!”

  4. c Nelson says

    This looks so good! Reminds me of Spanish soup my mom use to make for me when I was sick! Will definetely be trying this! Thank you!

  7. MikiHope says

    Freedom Soup–now that makes sense and it does look like a fully balanced meal in each bowl! Looks really good actually-am going to go look for some of the recipes and yes, I am a carnivore also!

  10. Casa Vilora Interiors says

    I went to an Haitian Independence Day Party last night and I saw plenty of soup. There was so much food. I am vegan so I only had some fruits, but all the food looked delicious. It was quite the party

  11. Kung Phoo says

    I think it is really cool when i learn about different cultures like this that stem off ancestors.. the soup looks good, especially with the looming snow!

  12. Chavonne Harvey says

    The soup looks delicious. Our traditions are foods that I ate growing up as a kid on holidays like Banana Pudding Cake and Strawberry Pudding Cake, Homemade Potato Salad and these traditions came from my mom’s childhood. Traditions are really fun especially when you do them with family.

  14. Lawna Noe says

    That soup looks so delicious! We ate Black Eyed Peas on New Years for good luck. I think it’s a southern thing. (My moms from the South).

  15. Meli Horowitz says

    For some reason I’ve heard about Freedom soup. Thanks so much for the history lesson. When I was living at home, I remember that we used to have a piece of herring and 7Up with Seagrams 7 to help bring in the New Year. It was the only time of the year that we had an alcohol. (-:

  16. Savannah-Lin Rosa says

    Wow that looks so food.. and it also looks like that will knock me our after eating.. Soup is so good for a cozy night.. I had never heard about this soup but now I will be looking into the recipe!

  17. Joanna Sormunen says

    Thank you for sharing your traditions with us. I think I need to try this soup Joumou some time, even if I’m not Haitian. The history behind the soup is very interesting also.

  23. Pam says

    I had not heard of Soup Joumou until I read your post yesterday. It looks delicious. I would like to try some too!

  37. Amanda Love says

    We do a soup like this in my homeland in the Caribbean as well and I love it. I can’t most of the ingredients where I live here so I haven’t had it in a while. 🙂

  39. Gretchen Luper says

    I appreciate that there is a celebration for Haiti. This soup looks like it would be so good that you really could eat it for 3 days straight. I’m looking over some recipes to see if it’s something I could do.