Six families and a borrowed living roomSis fanmi ak yon salon prete

Under the French, soup joumou was a dish enslaved people cooked and were not allowed to eat. On January 1, 1804, the first morning of a free Haiti, everybody ate it. We have eaten it on New Year's morning ever since, and so has every Haitian household I have ever known.

In 2009 our church started making a pot for the members who were alone for the holiday. One pot became four. By 2015 we were cooking in the parking lot on propane burners borrowed from a restaurant on 125th Street.

Midnight, December 31

The cooking starts at midnight, right after the watch-night service. The men peel the squash. The women argue about the beef. The youth carry crates of carrots, cabbage and pasta from the van, and the deacons keep the fire going until morning.

At nine we hold the Independence Day service. At eleven the line forms. This year we served 860 bowls to members, neighbors, two police officers and a family from Venezuela who had smelled it from the bus stop.

We do not make any money from it, and we do not want to. It is the one morning a year when the church building smells like every grandmother's kitchen in Jacmel, and the whole street comes in.