Food; Spice Island

It's hot. It's very hot. It seems way too hot for a slow-cooked meaty meal. But Claudette Eugene is cooking one anyway.

''I cooked yesterday, I cook today, I will cook tomorrow,'' says the Haitian-born mother of 5 and grandmother of 10. ''I cook every day. The food never stays.''

In Haiti, a cook learns to match the heat of the day with the chilies in a meal, to deploy bitter and sweet flavors against the languor of humidity. And a natural cook, like Eugene, intuits the culinary patois of Haiti, a blend of African, Spanish, French and British influences culled from tropical produce and spices like nutmeg, allspice and anato.

Cook in the morning and people will come. Some will pick. Some will binge. Everyone will eat all evening long.

Maybe it's the layering of flavor and spice that masks the heft of Haitian food. Or perhaps it's the serene purposefulness of a cook like Eugene, who infuses each dish with the joy of survival.

Occupying the western half of the island of Hispaniola (the eastern half is the Dominican Republic), the Haitian landscape moves from mountainous peaks to fertile lowland. The area is as prone to drought as it was, historically, to conquest.