Haitian cuisine

Haitian cuisine consists of cooking traditions and practices from Haiti. It is a Creole cuisine that originates from a blend of several culinary styles that populated the western portion of the island of Hispaniola, namely African, French, indigenous Taíno, Spanish and Arab influences. Haitian cuisine has some similarities with "criollo" (Spanish for 'creole') cooking and similar to the rest of the Latin Caribbean, but differs in several ways from its regional counterparts. Flavors are bold and spicy demonstrating African and French influences, with notable derivatives coming from native Taíno and Spanish techniques. Levantine influences have made their way into the mainstream culture, due to an Arab migration over the years. Years of adaptation have led to these cuisines to merge into Haitian cuisine. Haiti was one of many Caribbean islands inhabited by the Taíno natives, speakers of an Arawakan language called Taíno. The barbecue originated in Haiti. The word 'barbecue' derives from the word barabicu, found in the language of the Taíno people of the Caribbean and entered European languages in the form barbacoa. Specifically, the Oxford English Dictionary translates the word as "framework of sticks set upon posts". Gonzalo Fernández De Oviedo y Valdés, a Spanish explorer, was the first to use the word "barbecoa" in print in Spain in 1526 in the Diccionario de la Lengua Española (2nd Edition) of the Real Academia Española. After Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492, the Spaniards found native Haitians roasting animal meat over a grill consisting of a wooden framework resting on sticks and a fire made underneath so that flames and smoke would rise and envelop the animal meat, giving it a certain flavor. Strangely enough, the same framework was used as a means of protection against the wild that may attack during the middle of the night while at sleep. The barbecue not only survived in the Haitian cuisine, but was introduced to many different parts of the world and has numerous regional variations.