Anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston did field work in Haiti in 1937. Hurston recalls eating “jean-jean and rice” which she describes as, “Haiti's most delicious native dish.” According to her, “Jean-jean is a little wild mushroom that grows” in Haiti. Her host, one Jules Faine, says Hurston prepares jean-jean and rice better than anyone else in Haiti. I met a young Haitian American student at the Culinary Institute of America on a Hog and Hominy book tour in 2008. My talk included my observation that as in West Africa, rice remained at the center Caribbean foodways. During the book signing the Haitian student said to me, “You know we Haitians make the best rice.” When it comes to shared foods like rice, okra, legumes, cassava, plantains, chicken, pork, fish, and barbecue sauces, I find ethnocentric (thinking we are the best) cooking claims hilarious!
