Haitian Cuisine: A Culinary Map of Haiti · Visit Haiti (2024)

FAQs

What is the main cuisine of Haiti? ›

In general, the average Haitian diet is largely based on starch staples such as rice, corn, millet, yams and beans. All types of meat and seafood are eaten as well, but often only the wealthier residents can afford them.

Haiti is the first independent nation in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the first Black-led republic. The country is home to the Citadelle Laferrière, a massive fortress built atop a mountain. It shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

These Haitians had created the first independent nation in the Caribbean. (The others were colonized, or ruled, by countries like Spain and France.) Haiti was also the second democracy in the Western Hemisphere (after the United States), and the first Black republic—or a government not led by a monarch—in the world.

Breakfast (dejne) is small; usually coffee, bread, fruit juice, and an egg. Lunch (manje midi) is a large meal. Usually rice, beans, and meat. Snacks are frequent and consist of fruit.

Beef or goat (and sometimes turkey) become tasso, while pork becomes griot (also spelled griyo), which is considered Haiti's national dish.

Haiti has an agricultural economy. Over half of the world's vetiver oil (an essential oil used in high-end perfumes) comes from Haiti. Bananas, cocoa, and mangoes are important export crops. Haiti has also moved to expand to higher-end manufacturing, producing Android-based tablets and current sensors and transformers.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world.

Hobbled by foreign interventions, political instability, and natural disasters, the former French colony is paralyzed by multiple crises. Once the wealthiest colony in the Americas, Haiti is now the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, with more than half of its population living below the World Bank's poverty line.

Violent crime is common in Haiti, including murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, assault, sexual assault and carjacking. The risk increases at night and in isolated areas. Gang violence is concentrated in certain areas. It is escalating in the capital, Port-au-Prince and extends to the Artibonite region.

Haiti is a majority Christian country. For much of its history and up to the present day, Haiti has been prevailingly a Christian country, primarily Roman Catholic, although in practice often profoundly modified and influenced through syncretism.

Why is Haiti so important to America? ›

Historically, the United States viewed Haiti as a counterbalance to Communist leaders in Cuba. Haiti's potential as a trading partner and an actor in the drug trade makes the nation strategically important to the United States.

Haitians generally do not eat yogurt, cottage cheese, or runny egg yolks. Drink lots of water and homemade fruit juices, coffee in the morning, and tea only when sick. Food prohibitions are related to particular diseases and life stages.

Why it's eaten for breakfast is less easy to explain, but the most accessible answer is that it's simply a filling and easy option for mornings — it's primarily a dish found in home kitchens, although a few restaurants and street vendors in Port-au-Prince offer it to morning customers.

Dining etiquette for seating. The most honored position is at the head of the table, with the most important guest seated immediately to the right of the host (women to the right of the host, and men to the right of the hostess). If there is a hosting couple, one will be at each end of the table.

An estimated 60 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, searching for food to eat, clean water to drink, and a safe place to live. Because of the scarcity of food in the Haitian slums, the poor eat mud platters for their survival. They buy mud, make platters, sell and eat them.

Vodou is a strong cultural tradition in the Haitian collective imagination—and it's present in Haitian paintings, music, dances, and literature. More than simply religion or spirituality, Vodou is an intangible patrimony that all Haitians share, whether they consider themselves a true practitioner or not.

The main staple foods in the country are rice, maize, wheat flour, sorghum, pulses (beans and peas), tubers (yams, cassava or yuca, and sweet potato), bananas (particularly plantains), and edible oil.

Their cuisines are very different, as Haitian food is derived from French, African, and Taíno Amerindian cultures, while Dominican food is derived from French, African, and Taíno Amerindian cultures. In the Dominican Republic, food is much more inspired by the Spanish.