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In The Fourth Trimester, we ask parents: What meal nourished you after welcoming your baby? This month it’s a robust chicken soup from cookbook author Lesley Enston.
In 2018, when our daughter was born, her father, Atibon, longed for Haiti. He’d been separated from his home country since 2010, just after that year’s earthquake. The ever-present and escalating political situation, among other reasons, kept him from going back. While Brooklyn, where we lived, has one of the largest Haitian diaspora in the world, he still yearned to find ways to bring his native land into our home.
Nearly all things food-related fall under my purview in the household, but when I gave birth to Desalin, I could no longer take the lead with mealtime. I found myself incapacitated, chained to the bed or couch with a tiny, adorable, totally alien package that had no interest in being put down for anything like cooking. The first night home we devoured the meal prepared by my good friend Lukas, who picked us up from the hospital. However, Desalin’s second day of life rolled around and I was clueless.
“I’ll make a bouyon,” Atibon announced.
The Haitian equivalent of chicken noodle soup, bouyon was the folk remedy to a lot of ailments: Feel a cold coming on? Bouyon. Need rejuvenation? Bouyon. It’s freezing and you’re grumpy? Bouyon! It is a dish as likely to be made in your grandmother’s home as ordered in a restaurant, and everyone has their own version. As I stared at my daughter’s little face, I mumbled some sort of agreement.
Atibon went out to the grocery store, returned quickly, and disappeared into the kitchen. Shortly, the telltale signs of his cooking emerged from there: festive and blaring konpa, the rhythmic grind of the pilon, the smell of simmering garlic, thyme, and cloves, and occasional shouted conversations about Haitian politics on the phone.
For years, whenever I made dinner, Atibon would tell me to make it more Haitian. Add whole cloves to this, Scotch bonnets to that, maybe some parsley and thyme? “Not everything has to be Haitian!” I’d exclaim. Though I couldn’t deny that the suggestions were good ones. He didn’t cook often, but when he did it was Haitian food with almost religious fervor. It was a way to connect to his ancestors, to where he grew up between Port-au-Prince and Les Cayes.
Now he was our designated cook—and I enjoyed it. I savored that first bowl of bouyon. I relaxed into that rich broth full of garlic, epis, chicken bones, and cloves. It made me feel like everything was going to be okay, like I could, in fact, take care of this strange and beautiful creature in my arms. With every waft of steam coming from the bowl, I could feel that Atibon had channeled his love of this new baby and his care for me into this soup. In this moment of vulnerability, he felt his heritage could take care of me.
I understood his need to inject his treasured culture into our lives, especially when things back home were so heartbreaking. I understood that, while we couldn’t take her to his home, a place he spoke of with reverence, he could, at least, bring home to us by way of this dish.
In the following weeks he made big batches, and I ate Atibon’s bouyon for most of Desalin’s first month of life. Its ingredients would vary based on my requests or what was on hand. While traditional bouyon is made with beef, Atibon always used chicken, as he’d developed a mistrust of factory-farmed beef in the US. He’d add whatever greens we had, though he preferred watercress and spinach. Sometimes he’d add chayote, called mirliton in Haitian Kreyòl, because Haitians believe it could help with lactation. The provisions (called viv) would sometimes change, but his favorite plantains (bannann) and batatas (patat) were a must. Though they are a common component, he never included the flour dumplings Haitians call donbwèy, partially out of laziness and partially from a firm belief that they add nothing to the dish. We made each bouyon our own.
Haiti was everywhere in the apartment those days. We were immersed in the sounds of konpa and vodoun drumming and the warm scents of Haitian herbs and spices. The bouyon was even getting passed on to Desalin via breastmilk. It’s no wonder that today, as a six-year-old, it’s one of her favorite things to eat. And while she will eat it if I make it, she’ll only really get excited about it if it’s his. It is still the answer to a runny nose or an “I don’t feel so good,” and it’s been one of the few dishes impervious to the sudden distrust of flavorful foods that seems to emerge once children hit a school age in North America. As she eats it, we often subject her to stories of Atibon’s childhood or lessons in Haitian Kreyòl.
While many things have changed in our household in the years since, our commitment to connecting our daughter to her Caribbean heritage, especially on the plate, has remained constant. Today her pride in her Haitian identity runs deep. And it may have all started in a bowl of bouyon.
