🇭🇹 The cattle breeds of Haiti

Cattle meet most Haitians at the table, as beef. Boeuf is a regular meat beside chicken and goat, going into the vegetable stew légume and the crisp fried patty. Around it sits a Creole cooking shaped by African, French, Taíno, Spanish and Levantine influences.

• Beef (boeuf) is named with chicken and goat among Haiti's everyday meats
• Légume, a thick vegetable stew, is usually made with beef or crab
• Ground beef fills the Haitian patty, a well-known fried snack
• Haitian cuisine blends African, French, Taíno, Spanish and Levantine influences
• The barbecue began with the Taíno, who roasted meat over a wooden frame

Cattle in Haiti

Cattle enter Haitian life chiefly as meat on the plate. Beef, which Haitians call boeuf, stands among the country's everyday meats, named beside chicken and goat (cabrit) as a regular part of the meal. The cooking around it is Creole, a blend of African, French, Indigenous Taíno, Spanish and later Levantine influences, with bold, spicy flavours built on peppers, herbs and a seasoned base sauce called epis. Beef turns up in homely dishes: stirred into légume, a thick stew of mashed eggplant, cabbage, chayote and greens usually made with beef or crab, and seasoned into boulette, small bread-bound meatballs. Fried patties filled with ground beef count among the nation's favourite snacks. Beside pork, goat and poultry, beef is one voice among several, and a quiet one, in this cuisine.

Milk, butter and beef

Beef is the cattle product this cuisine shows most plainly. It is named with chicken and goat as a meat eaten often, flavouring légume, the thick vegetable stew, and filling boulette, meatballs bound with bread. Ground beef sits inside the Haitian patty, a crisp fried snack counted among the country's best-known foods. Dairy reaches the table largely as evaporated or condensed milk, stirred into crémas, a sweet rum drink poured at holidays, into akasan, a corn drink, and into pain patate, a sweet potato bread. Cheeses in the French manner are common in local shops and markets, a lasting mark of the colonial tie.