WARM EMBRACE: FAY VICTOR’S ISLAND WELCOME COCONUT PUMPKIN SOUP IN A BOWL
Caribbean Pumpkin Spicy Coconut Soup // Fay Victor
Recipe
Ingredients (serves 20 people):
Pumpkin / Kabocha squash — 3-4 large (chopped and skinned, about 8 lb total)
Coconut milk — 10 cans (13.5 oz)
Onion — 4-5 medium onions (about 2 lb)
Garlic — 6 cloves
Ginger — 2 large pieces (~6 oz total)
Vegetable broth — 2 qt (about 8 cups)
Olive oil — ½ cup
Turmeric — 2 tsp
Salt - to taste
Black pepper - to taste
Lime — 2 whole
Aji dulce - 5-6 peppers (or to taste)
This might have been the most loved dish of the residency. It seemed to gently wrap itself around all the musicians - the sweetness of pumpkin and the richness of coconut milk coming together, thick and velvety, softly loosening body and mind.
Begin by heating a large pot over medium heat and adding coconut oil. Add the pumpkin, stir, then cover and let it steam slowly. As it cooks, the pumpkin begins to release its natural sweetness.
Add the onion, garlic, and ají dulce. Let them soften together, until the aroma rises and the onions turn translucent. Then comes brown sugar and cumin. This moment is important—the sugar melts, and a soft caramel fragrance begins to unfold.
This is where it stops being just a pumpkin soup, and becomes Fay’s bloodline soup. Add coconut milk and broth, lower the heat, and let it simmer uncovered. Cook until the pumpkin becomes so soft it almost collapses on its own. Then blend until smooth. Return it to the heat and season with salt and black pepper. Finish with a little chopped cilantro.
The gentleness of coconut and the warmth of spice slowly sink into the body.
Coconut milk is not just gentle - it feels like the blood of the Caribbean. A lineage carried through Fay’s mother and father, and through generations before them. That same inheritance flows through the bodies of the diaspora gathered from all over the world - you find yourself going back for another bowl, and then another.
Nassy sisters // Fay Victor’s Mom and Dad
And somewhere along the way, you feel your strength returning.
Gochisousama.
-Yurie Ito
The Caribbean Pumpkin Spicy Coconut Soup served with a green salad and Fay’s Caramelized Coconut Chicken Pilau
Fay explaining to the Bloodlines artists where her recipe for the soup comes from.
