Mme Jean-Claude has sold her griot (marinated, fried pork shoulder) dish at the same roadside location on the way up to the mountains of Kenscoff for more than 20 years.
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Mme Jean-Claude has sold her griot (marinated, fried pork shoulder) dish at the same roadside location on the way up to the mountains of Kenscoff for more than 20 years.
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Super-excited to return to Haiti for the Gout et Saveurs Haitian Food Festival—my second visit this year. A layover in Atlanta gave me an opportunity to visit family and mentally prepare for cooking in Haiti for the first time.
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Super-excited to return to Haiti for the Gout et Saveurs Haitian Food Festival—my second visit this year. A layover in Atlanta gave me an opportunity to visit family and mentally prepare for cooking in Haiti for the first time.
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Sometimes a simple dish can evoke the most powerful memory. I hadn’t had this salt cod stew in at least 20 years, but it quickly transported me back to my youth in Queens and visits to Haiti as a child. This breakfast is one of my father’s favorites, served best with boiled, starchy vegetables and avocado slices. It’s rich: salt cod simmered in tomatoes, onions, and small shallots. It’s also bright, with wisps of fruity heat from scotch bonnets. An usual but amazing way to start your day.
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Sometimes a simple dish can evoke the most powerful memory. I hadn’t had this salt cod stew in at least 20 years, but it quickly transported me back to my youth in Queens and visits to Haiti as a child. This breakfast is one of my father’s favorites, served best with boiled, starchy vegetables and avocado slices. It’s rich: salt cod simmered in tomatoes, onions, and small shallots. It’s also bright, with wisps of fruity heat from scotch bonnets. An usual but amazing way to start your day.
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Starchy root vegetables are an important staple in Haiti and served in various ways depending on what they accompany. Here, our family cook prepares boiled plantains, potatoes, and yams for the savory salt cod stew.
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Starchy root vegetables are an important staple in Haiti and served in various ways depending on what they accompany. Here, our family cook prepares boiled plantains, potatoes, and yams for the savory salt cod stew.
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The Petion Ville hillside behind my aunt’s house shows how most of Haiti lives, and the dichotomy of those with means living among those seeking means.
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The Petion Ville hillside behind my aunt’s house shows how most of Haiti lives, and the dichotomy of those with means living among those seeking means.
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Driving through town, these vans serve as the main transportation source.
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Driving through town, these vans serve as the main transportation source.
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Everything is a means to make a living—from mangoes and breadfruit to clothing.
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Everything is a means to make a living—from mangoes and breadfruit to clothing.
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Young girls walk home from school.
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Young girls walk home from school.
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Fruit vendors fill the roads, offering mangoes and pineapples in the hot Haitian sun.
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Fruit vendors fill the roads, offering mangoes and pineapples in the hot Haitian sun.
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Papaya, pineapple, guava, and watermelon at the fruit market. To me, this image represents so much. The less-than-perfect fruit expresses the struggle and will to fight that is a part of daily life in Haiti. For many in Haiti, survival depends on using every resource available.
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Papaya, pineapple, guava, and watermelon at the fruit market. To me, this image represents so much. The less-than-perfect fruit expresses the struggle and will to fight that is a part of daily life in Haiti. For many in Haiti, survival depends on using every resource available.
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Twice-cooked griot pork and fried plantains served at our press conference for the the food festival. It’s topped with Ti Malice, a marinade of small shallots and scotch bonnet chilies.
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Twice-cooked griot pork and fried plantains served at our press conference for the the food festival. It’s topped with Ti Malice, a marinade of small shallots and scotch bonnet chilies.
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We ended our first night at Le Quatier Latin, one of Port-au-Prince’s most established and well-known restaurants for traditional Haitian cuisine. The wonderful owner, Miriam Padberg, is Dutch, but has been a global ambassador for Haiti.
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We ended our first night at Le Quatier Latin, one of Port-au-Prince’s most established and well-known restaurants for traditional Haitian cuisine. The wonderful owner, Miriam Padberg, is Dutch, but has been a global ambassador for Haiti.
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Prep Day for my course! Got to work with local guinea hen. I snuck some seasonings from home for a dish that combined Thai and Haitian seasonings. Since both are tropical countries, there’s overlap in Thai and Haitian ingredients, like chilies, pineapple, and tamarind.
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Prep Day for my course! Got to work with local guinea hen. I snuck some seasonings from home for a dish that combined Thai and Haitian seasonings. Since both are tropical countries, there’s overlap in Thai and Haitian ingredients, like chilies, pineapple, and tamarind.
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Cooks at our host hotel, the Karibe Hotel, preparing breadfruit.
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Cooks at our host hotel, the Karibe Hotel, preparing breadfruit.
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Sauce Ti Malice: a wonderful marinade of shallots, scotch bonnet, and lime juice. Perfect over fatty foods for acid and heat.
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Sauce Ti Malice: a wonderful marinade of shallots, scotch bonnet, and lime juice. Perfect over fatty foods for acid and heat.
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Pikliz, the most prized condiment in Haitian cuisine. A cold pickle of hot scotch bonnet chilies, cabbage, peppers, shallots, vinegar, and lime. Hot, fruity, crunchy, tangy. A must on any Haitian table!
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Pikliz, the most prized condiment in Haitian cuisine. A cold pickle of hot scotch bonnet chilies, cabbage, peppers, shallots, vinegar, and lime. Hot, fruity, crunchy, tangy. A must on any Haitian table!
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Gorgeous sour oranges. The juice serves as an overnight marinade for most fish, poultry, and meat dishes in Haitian cuisine.
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Gorgeous sour oranges. The juice serves as an overnight marinade for most fish, poultry, and meat dishes in Haitian cuisine.
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The dining room as we prepare the final touches on dinner.
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The dining room as we prepare the final touches on dinner.
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Griot, plantains, breadfruit, and pikliz sold roadside at this iconic stand. No trip to Haiti is complete without a visit. This image comes from many cultures: a strong and graceful woman serving one dish, years on end.
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Griot, plantains, breadfruit, and pikliz sold roadside at this iconic stand. No trip to Haiti is complete without a visit. This image comes from many cultures: a strong and graceful woman serving one dish, years on end.
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One of Haiti’s most iconic dishes, “fritay,” a mix of fried foods: griot, the citrus-marinated and twice-cooked pork dish; plantains; and pikliz, the hot and crunchy pickle of cabbage, onions, and scotch bonnet peppers, and a ubiquitous part of Haitian meals.
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One of Haiti’s most iconic dishes, “fritay,” a mix of fried foods: griot, the citrus-marinated and twice-cooked pork dish; plantains; and pikliz, the hot and crunchy pickle of cabbage, onions, and scotch bonnet peppers, and a ubiquitous part of Haitian meals.
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In the mountains of Kenscoff, the weather softens and farms benefit from rain and lush growing conditions.
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In the mountains of Kenscoff, the weather softens and farms benefit from rain and lush growing conditions.
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The stunning open air dining room at Le Vert D’or restaurant in the mountains of Kenscoff.
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The stunning open air dining room at Le Vert D’or restaurant in the mountains of Kenscoff.
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Young guava growing in the mountains.
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Young guava growing in the mountains.
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A day off to soak in culture and heritage, absorb surroundings and tastes, re-learn and be grateful.
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A day off to soak in culture and heritage, absorb surroundings and tastes, re-learn and be grateful.
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Cooks prepare breadfruit and yucca for a last team family meal.
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Cooks prepare breadfruit and yucca for a last team family meal.
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Our last family meal prepared by Digby Stridiron from St. Croix was Metemgee, the savory Guyanese stew. It was a warm and soul-satisfying dish rich with root vegetables, shrimp, crab, coconut milk, and spices, including cardamom and allspice.
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Our last family meal prepared by Digby Stridiron from St. Croix was Metemgee, the savory Guyanese stew. It was a warm and soul-satisfying dish rich with root vegetables, shrimp, crab, coconut milk, and spices, including cardamom and allspice.
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Passion fruit for my last breakfast. Savoring these last tropical flavors.
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Passion fruit for my last breakfast. Savoring these last tropical flavors.
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It was fantastic to cook alongside these great chefs from Haiti, the Caribbean, Canada, and the States for Gout et Saveurs Haitian Food Festival. Thank you for bringing us together, chef Stephan Durand.
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It was fantastic to cook alongside these great chefs from Haiti, the Caribbean, Canada, and the States for Gout et Saveurs Haitian Food Festival. Thank you for bringing us together, chef Stephan Durand.
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A typical image of Haiti that means so much to me. Haiti will always be in my heart.
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A typical image of Haiti that means so much to me. Haiti will always be in my heart.
Portland chefs are becoming culinary globetrotters, spreading the local food gospel while finding fresh ideas to bring back home. Some travel to study at the feet of masters. Others are simply on a mission to eat and drink their way through the latest, greatest food city. Whatever the reason: we want to hear their stories and, yes, we want their itineraries.
Up next: Top Chef star and Departure honcho Gregory Gourdet, who’s made a name for himself with modernist pan-Asian cuisine and vegan creativity. But increasingly, Haiti is on his mind. For the past year, he’s been digging deep into the spicy, soulful, sour orange-marinated foods of his youth. The cuisine has taken a front-row seat at several Departure dinners, and in the summer of 2018, he was invited to lead a major Haitian dinner at the James Beard House with the cook he admires most: his mom.
Though he was born in Brooklyn, Gourdet kept an almost exclusively Haitian diet growing up. His parents moved to New York in the ’60s to pursue education, and the family stayed close to Brooklyn’s Haitian community. “We always ate Haitian food,” he says. “My mother did not have a handle on American cuisine.”
In May 2018, Gourdet returned to Haiti for the first time in 21 years. Four months later, he returned again, this time to cook at the eight-year-old Haitian Food Festival, indulge in his aunt’s home cooking, and to explore the depths of his most cherished cuisine. His “postcard” says it all. –Karen Brooks
Note: Departure’s next Haiti fundraiser is Nov 18 and is sure to be a blow-out experience. Call 503-802-5370 for ticket info.
