- This soup is so disgusting,
I would never eat this soup.
(upbeat music)
- Today we are cooking soup joumou.
I learned it straight from my grandma.
- We're about to cook the best soup joumou you ever had.
- Just know that I'm gonna win.
- I'm feeling excited, let's get to cooking.
(upbeat music)
(blender whirs)
- [Andrew] I bet none of them got some (indistinct) though.
This is what's gonna put it over the top.
- I called my dad in a panic, he thought I was dying,
but I am right now (indistinct).
- [Reggie] Look at that, yummy.
Soup is pretty much done.
- I think I made a mistake.
I think this could be a really big failure.
(fake cries)
- What's up y'all, your favorite Haitians back.
I'm Andrew Walden Luganya St. Juste.
- Hi, my name, my name is Joyce.
- What's up, it's your boy. I'm Reggie, Reggie B.
- We're here to do another Haitian challenge.
So today we're doing soup joumou.
Soup joumou is a staple in Haiti.
We have it every year at the end of the year,
going into next year.
It signifies independence, abundance,
and just kind of closing one chapter
and opening the next one.
- My grandma used to have a restaurant in Haiti,
and I think I'm gonna win
because I'm using her recipe.
- When I put the dish together,
the first person I called was my mom.
- I call my dad, I asked for a recipe.
- I reached out to my mom and she said,
just gotta make sure that you get the seasonings right.
- I was like, "Mommy, I'm making some soup.
"What do I got to do?"
She's like, "Oh, you just need a (indistinct) of this
"and oh, a (indistinct)."
Haitians don't have recipes.
I don't know what it was,
they don't like to write anything down.
It's always a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
So she was no help.
- During quarantine, I've been really like experimenting
and having fun with Haitian cuisine
'cause I really wanna connect back to my culture.
All of my future nieces and nephews
are gonna know me as a good Haitian cook, period.
(upbeat music)
- This is, it's real meaty,
it's real thicken.
- This one is very different.
It smells sweet, which is a little off-putting.
- I can smell the, like, thyme leaves.
- I've never known the soup to be like a sweet thing,
it's more of like a savory thing.
Off first glance, like all the noodles are kinda ripped,
which makes me think they over cooked.
- This potato a little hard, but that happens.
Some people like hard potatoes
if they're in that part of Haiti.
Not my part of Haiti though.
It's like sweet, which I was not expecting it to be sweet.
(chuckles)
- It's borderline dessert.
- Oh, this is a bannann, that's why.
She put sweet bannanns in it.
That was a good touch.
- I don't know what this is, it's like orange.
I guess it's butternut squash.
- I think it's really, really good,
but some of these auxiliary flavors
are kinda throwing me off.
It tastes almost salsa-y,
and I know that it's like not supposed to be soup joumou.
- I don't know if I'm into it or not.
Ooh.
- So if I had to give this a scale between one and 10,
Ima give it an eight,
'cause the ingredients are there, it looks the part,
but then as soon as I taste it and I bite it, it's like,
mm, it's not what I thought it was.
- I'm gonna give it a five, hard five.
(game tone) (upbeat tone)
(laughs)
- What type of all lives matter of soup joumou?
What type of gentrified coffee shop in Brooklyn?
- This soup is definitely giving me
somebody's auntie made this.
She had a little bit of (indistinct),
so she's feeling a little tipsy.
- Like it looked like Rice-A-Roni.
Haitians don't even eat fresh bread,
like, you gotta get the dough or the cocoa bread
or something.
- The heavy weight, that's what I like to see
in a soup joumou,
you know, if you could hold it up like this
and your hand don't hurt, then you failed.
I see the carrots, I see the pasta, I see the cubeb meat.
This is actually in cubes.
Mine was not, I make thick slices
'cause I'm a thick ass snack, you feel me?
- It tastes like pasta,
like I'm getting heavy pasta vibes.
I don't see a lot of the squash,
I don't see a lot of the cabbage.
I see three types of noodles though, which that's different.
- Okay. She needs some salt, put salt on it,
little Salt Bae.
(wind chime sound)
Maybe this person's family is healthier than mine.
In the Lucian family we like hypertension,
we like salt, honey.
- Another thing, do you see some soup?
I don't see soup.
Is there a broth I'm supposed to put on top of it?
- She tastes like she's gluten free and she's vegan.
- [Producer] There's Parmesan cheese on it.
- What? Excuse me.
- [Producer] There's some Parmesan cheese
sprinkled on there.
- Par...
- I've been to Haiti nine times.
I've never seen Parmesan cheese in Haiti, never.
Not once, not one never time.
- Okay, you know what?
This is what I love about the Haitian diaspora,
is that we all are very creative.
I did not know that we were Italian,
multicultural Haitians, they all matter.
- You know,
maybe there's a different part of Haiti I didn't go to it.
- You know, this actually isn't bad.
I mean, the Parmesan is a little (shudders) for me.
- Yeah, it's gonna be a no for me.
- I would give this a four out of 10.
- Yeah, this is a three for me.
(game tone)
(upbeat music)
- It smells really, really good.
The broth is a little, it's like watery.
- Is it rigatoni wheat?
And, guess you're gonna be like,
"Joyce, your fat ass needs some wheat rigatoni."
but I'm not tryna be no skinny hoe.
So, if that's wheat rigatoni
then we're gonna have many issues,
and that's already a duck in the points.
- There isn't a lot of noodles,
so that's a little sad to see.
- Where's the squash?
(exhales loudly)
This is feeling like a New Jersey soup joumou right now.
- Mm, there's isn't anything about it
that tastes distinctly Haitian.
It kinda just tastes like beef noodle soup.
- Damn, it is good though.
I'm angry. (laughs)
- Like I can't taste the pumpkin,
'cause there's supposed to be pumpkin in here,
like it's a squash-based soup.
I mean, I'm not gonna trash it, I would eat this,
but it does not remind me of home.
- Damn it!
- I will give it this, the meat, incredibly tender.
- Damn it! I've been beaten.
Oh my God, I'm so mad!
- Ima give it a seven.
It's a good soup,
I just don't know if it's soup joumou.
- I hate being humbled like this.
I'm just going to say this is a seven outta 10.
(beep)
(game tone) (upbeat music)
(party horn sound)
- I would like to thank the ancestors,
I'd like to think all the Wyclef albums.
- [Joyce] No.
- Oh, we got to hater?
- One point, I (beep) up at one point below you.
- I'm gonna get you back,
- You know it's-- - I'm gonna get you back.
(Andrew laughs)
- Enjoy your win, one point.
(audience cheering sound)
- Thank you guys. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Come over to my house one time, we can cook it together,
you know, we can unite as Haitians
and I can teach you guys how to cook, no problem.
(upbeat music)