Home Taste Like This food pop-up aims to increase Haitian representation

From a small table in the backyard of a home in the North End, Franchesca Lamarre is serving up spaghetti with peach jerk tomato sauce, a sunny side egg and epis chimichurri – a traditional paste in her country’s cuisine.

The Detroit chef of Haitian lineage and founder of food pop-up Home Taste Like This is on a mission to bring back more Caribbean food options to the city, with another pop-up coming up Thursday, March 28, at Foxglove, an urban garden and music space. The 27-year-old said she remembers having more diverse food options growing up, like dishes from Trinidad and Belize. And in hearing from many Detroiters who’ve never had Haitian food, she realized there was a space to fill and a chance to share her heritage. 

“As a Black chef I’m very much interested in pulling different food lineages from anywhere Black people touch the world, across the globe,” said Lamarre. “It’s really important especially to present the Haitian perspective, because it is one that is so critically in conflict with the United States.”

For more than two centuries the United States has had an antagonistic relationship with the country, from refusing to recognize Haiti’s independence from the French as one of the first states to abolish slavery to unfavorable trade policies for the country to two occupations of Haiti. Today, the country is under attack by criminal gangs which are using weapons illegally trafficked mostly from the United States, a United Nations official told AlJazeera. And, for decades, the United States has imported subsidized rice to the country, driving down profits for local Haitian farmers.  

Because of its agricultural abundance and resources, Haiti was once one of the richest states of the world, and called the ‘Pearl of the Antilles.’ But today, through imperialism, it has become the poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean, and among the poorest countries in the world. Presently, more than half of its population is chronically food insecure, according to the World Food Programme. 

“If you think about what’s happening there now, it just feels important to show up in the food space in that way,” Lamarre said about her pop-ups. 

Andrew Gutting, who co-founded Foxglove alongside Erika Linenfelser, said Lamarre’s food definitely tastes like an authentic, home-cooked meal. Even as someone sensitive to spice, he said he couldn’t stop eating the zesty spaghetti. 

“The food was just really good,” Gutting said. “It tasted like spaghetti, but it was definitely like, this isn’t your regular American spaghetti.” 

Thursday’s menu will feature rice and beans with a Haitian pickled slaw condiment called pikliz, and a drink made with soursop, a fruit native to the Caribbean. 

About a decade ago, another Haitian food pop-up, Náp Boulé, sold Haitian spaghetti in Detroit as well but has since closed. 

In 2019, Haitian immigrant Edens Gaston opened the food truck Mr. Creole after selling food to coworkers while he worked at the Stellantis automotive plant on the east side. 

“Everybody was going crazy because this is the first time they ate Haitian food, spicy stuff like that,” said Gaston, 44. Now, Gaston pops up with the truck in downtown Detroit at Campus Martius and at Spirit Plaza. He also offers catering and employs five to seven people.

People are still going crazy for the food, Gaston said. When he’s downtown, dozens of people line up for his truck. 

With his success, Gaston is looking for a permanent place for his food truck like a gas station, supermarket or elsewhere. In April, the truck will participate in the NFL Draft, taking place fromApril 25- 27, and in May it will reopen for the rest of the summer season downtown.

Later this spring, Lamarre plans to host another Haitian food pop-up alongside a screening of The Forgotten Occupation, a 2023 documentary about the United States’ occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934. Lamarre is also launching Book Club Snacks, which will consist of a food pop-up at a local venue with a DJ and a low-stakes conversation about the books they’re reading. 

As an artist and a community person, Lamarre, said she approaches food through a romantic lens, and the goal is to highlight the abundance of the Black food diaspora.

“There’s a through-line between Black diasporic food – we’re always throwing a lot of something into a pot that sits for a long time and we’re all waiting to eat it. That’s super romantic,” she said. 

“When people think about home it’s like this sacred place, but it’s also an inherent connection and I want to present that forward.” 

Home Taste Like This is popping up Thursday, March 28 from 5 p.m. to midnight at Foxglove, 256 Kenilworth.