By Jacqueline Charles- Finally, some good news for Haiti courtesy of the United Nations cultural organization and its annual list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
The group, which previously recognized Haiti’s famous unifying freedom soup, soup joumou or pumpkin soup, as a contribution to humanity, on Wednesday paid homage to another traditional Haitian delicacy, kasav or cassava bread.
The recognition is being shared along with Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Venezuela. The five nations last year submitted a joint application to UNESCO asking for recognition of the popular staple as a shared cultural heritage and common lineage.
The entry highlighted the traditional knowledge and practice that the countries share in the making and consumption of the cassava bread, whose traditional preparation from manioc flour dates back to a thousand years to the region’s first indigenous people, the Amerindians before being spread throughout Central America and the Caribbean.
The nomination, part of a long process that included research and testimony from experts, marked the first time that a group of countries in the hemisphere posed a common entry, underscoring their shared commonalities despite differences in language and histories. In the case of Haiti in particular, it highlighted that the French and Creole-speaking nation, which is undergoing an unprecedented crisis shares a common heritage and identity with its Spanish-speaking neighbours.
That was the argument of the country’s then-UNESCO ambassador, Dominique Dupuy, who spearheaded the multicountry nomination. In 2021, Dupuy successfully earned Haiti its first ever entry on UNESCO’s Intangible List with her entry for soup joumou, the previous year. The meal was eaten by Haiti’s African slaves to mark their independence from France in 1804 and remains a traditional meal on Sundays in Haitian households and every New Year’s Day, which is also Haiti’s independence day.
Before leaving the cultural organisation earlier this year to be foreign minister in the country’s U.S.-backed transitional government before the Transitional Presidential Council dismissed her, Dupuy spearheaded the kasav entry and one other – recognition of Haiti’s homegrown konpa music. That application isn’t expected to be treated until December of next year.
In a video address to the committee in Paraguay after the inscription on Wednesday, Dupuy said kasav “represents a facet of our identity and serves as a reminder that our history is deeply rooted in millennial-old traditions.”
In a statement to the Miami Herald, Dupuy said Wednesday’s inscription is a reminder that Haiti’s history and contributions outweigh its present-day problems. Cassava’s inscription like that of soup joumou and konpa, these consecrate Haiti’s contributions to the advancement of humanity and “reaffirms our right to dignity and respect and our interconnectedness with our neighbors and our region.”
“At a time when turmoil can make us, Haitians, feel quite isolated and literally cut off from the rest of the world, with airports and borders closed, this first multinational inscription comes as a reminder to ourselves and to the rest of the world of our sacred and shared contributions to the advancement of humanity,” she said.
Before her dismissal as foreign minister during last month’s ouster of Garry Conille who was replaced as prime minister by local entrepreneur Alix Didier Fils Aimé, Dupuy was an outspoken critic of mass deportations of Haitians from the neighboring Dominican Republican. Her outspokenness was not always welcomed, and became a source of tensions in the lead up to the government’s firing by the Transitional Presidential Council. But in sharing the recognition with the Dominican Republic, whose government she collaborated closely with on the entry while at UNESCO, Dupuy said she hopes cassava’s recognition serves a wider purpose.
“More than ever, at a time where Haitians are the subjects of brutal dehumanizing treatments, I believe that this inscription can remind our neighbors in particular, our region, and the world that our shared identity can never be dismissed, our humanity cannot be negated and it is my hope that it will serve as a much needed bridge between our communities and as gateway to constructive dialogue and peace,” she said.
In a statement recently appointed Haitian Cultural and Communications Minister Patrick Delatour welcomed the recognition and contributions of those involved in the nomination. UNESCO’s global recognition, he said, serves as “another reason to hope and to continue to work for the restoration of security.”
A popular staple for 1 billion people around the world, cassava in this region has its own story. It has transcended European colonisation, brutal slavery and regional tensions.
At the heart of its survival has been its traditional production technique, which the entry highlighted. Despite its different names and flavoring in each of the countries, it represents the interconnections and transfer of knowledge between the Amerindians and Arawak-speaking Taínos on the island of Hispaniola that Haiti and the Dominican Republic share, and the African slaves through the region.
In Cuba, the bread is still made in six rural provinces in the eastern and central regions of the island; in Venezuela, cassava is popular among indigenous communities and the country’s African descendants; in the Dominican Republic, as in Haiti, it’s present throughout, while in Honduras, it’s a staple food for the Garífunas, the descendants of African slaves mixed with Carib and Arawak Indians who sought refuge in Central America after fleeing slavery and war in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
In Haiti, where hunger is spreading among 5.4 million people and staples like yeast bread are out of reach for many amid double-digit inflation, kasav is not only helping to keep bellies full but it’s also leading an economic rebirth for some.
In the historic city of Cap-Haïtien, in northern Haiti, a popular cassava producer is now in business with a young entrepreneur as part of a joint venture known as Dope Kasav. Auguste Boniface Prince, a well-known cassava bread maker and Monac Petit Benoit employ dozens of people in their open-air factory where their bread takes on 11 different flavors and is made over an open fire using charred wood, artisan sieves and homemade wooden knives.
Just as their fore-bearers did, workers sift the flour, then spread it evenly in a circular fashion onto a round, flat iron plate known as a platine, which sits on top of a large concrete slab with burning charcoal underneath.
As it cooks, the flavoring is then added to break up the taste — and give Haitian cassava bread a different flavor profile from its competitors: : herring, peanut, ginger, sugar, salt, cinnamon, coconut, sweetened condensed cream, pineapple — or any combination of the above. (Miami Herald)
