Food Consumption Patterns Part 2

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sauce. Ginger goes with sweets, as does cinnamon, star anise (Illicium verum), and fey d’inde.
On the other hand, bullion cubes, cloves, peppers, parsley, leeks, tomato paste, onion and
salt are almost all—or at least a minimum combination of them--indispensable ingredients
in meat and fish sauces.
Bread was omitted even though we did keep soup-pen (bread soup). The reason is because
it is highly misleading to mention bread as a distinct category. Bread was often not
mentioned when in fact we know that it is one of the most consumed foods, particularly in
urban areas. Anecdotally we know that bread is almost always eaten with coffee and
chocolate and akasan. The pattern is so consistent that it is almost inconceivable to
consume these liquids in the absence of bread. People will also commonly and traditionally
eat bread with juice, sugar water or even soda. Yet, during the freelist interviews no
respondent mentioned bread in the context of these liquids. In this regard it would be
interesting to clarify in subsequent research to what degree cookies and crackers have
supplanted bread as a snack food.
The same taking-for-granted of common foods appears true for mangos and perhaps sweet
potatoes and bread fruit. They were commonly left out of respondent lists. We suspect
same might be true regarding peanuts and peanut butter. They may be so much a part of
the diet that people simply took them for granted and failed to mention them. On the other
hand, it is clear that they are not recognized medicinal types foods in cases of illness or
acute nutritional need. Only one of the fifty people interviewed mentioned peanut butter.
Other food dimensions that are touched on in the following but that may warrant greater
development in the subsequent stages of the research are the dimensions, 1) sweet, salty,
spicy and sour, and 2) hot vs. cold. Indeed, it may be useful to explore a type of
multidimensional categorization of food types, associations and rules along these lines as
well as how they are prepared, liquid, paste, powder or solid if they are natural vs.
manufactured, and local vs. imported .
Another entire realm of foods are those made of imported wheat. These foods are present
in the analysis and are given their prominent role in the Haitian diet. But they could be
analyzed as their own complex category of foods. We have provided that analysis but, for
the time being, relegated it to another annex.
In short, the food system is complex and we are not able to present all rules and all
relationships at this stage. But the following analysis is nevertheless extensive, helps make
sense of Haitian culinary patterns, carries us a long way toward identifying where the
consumption of peanuts can be promoted and expanded in the Haitian dietary regime, and
it lays the foundation for complete profile of culinary rules and consumption patterns in
the subsequent stage of investigation.