Belize - do you know anything about it?

rosemary
3 days ago
5 min read

"Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints. Eat nothing but fry jacks!” Anon

I'm continuing my world foodie tour and have come to Central America and the small country of Belize. I knew nothing about Belize, and indeed if you had asked me where it was I wouldn't really have known.

So here is a map - and above - its most amazing natural feature they call The Great Blue Hole, which is situated on the UNESCO World Heritage site of the second longest coral reef in the world.

Although it has nothing to do with food - well remotely it has - in that it is a tourist site these days and tourists mean services such as restaurants, cafés, bars, street food - yes although it has nothing to do with food, it is so amazing that it deserves a few words.

I don't really understand how it was formed - as a typical limestone karst formation on land I think which rising sea levels covered over - although I also saw it described as a sink hole. There are caves down there and it's 124 metres deep and was made famous by Jacques Cousteau back in 1971 In 2012 Discovery Channel named it number one in the 10 most amazing places on earth. I think I would agree. Like wow. Wikipedia will tell you more.

History - well originally Mayan - there are a large number of Mayan ruins in the interior, however, the Mayans had largely left by the time the Spanish arrived and colonised it. A hundred to two hundred years later, British pirates began to settle on the coast, so much so that eventually the British gained control of the country - it was called British Honduras until 1973 so that's one reason why we may not recognize its name. It is now independent but part of of the British Commonwealth. Over time there has been a lot of immigration - from Mexico and its other neighbours, as well as the inevitable African slaves. Until relatively recently the majority of the population was creole - a mix of British and African, but today the majority - roughly half is a Mayan/Spanish mix, lthough there are other significant immigrant communities - Mennonites, from America and Canada, Chinese, and Garifuna - a mix of Carib Indians and Africans deported by the British from St. Vincent. A democracy, based on the British parliamentary system.

It's subtropical, mountainous and forested, although forestry has been such a major industry in the past, that many of the forests have disappeared. In the 1930s there was a devastating hurricane that virtually destroyed the capital Belize City, and so a new capital was built inland. However, today Belize City has grown again and is still the largest population centre. There is not much agriculture - sugar, bananas and citrus being the main crops. But there is of course, fishing and aquaculture. Today, like many such countries it relies a lot on service industries such as tourism - mostly in the form of visiting cruise ships.

Then there's the long-running and still not completely resolved border problem with Guatemala - who claims it as its own. I mean look at the map at the top of the page. Natural borders do not run in dead straight lines, although that line has been there for a long time. The dispute is currently in The International Court of Justice. Currently the Foreign Affairs Department advice is "Exercise a high degree of caution in Belize due to the threat of violent crime"

So to food. I've surveyed a few lists and compiled a list of my own of the dishes that cropped up most often.

But first recado - a spice mix that crops up here and there, either in a red or a black form. Both are based on anchiote - or annatto - a seed from the anchiote tree. The other ingredients of the mix include the seeds of coriander, cumin and peppercorns, oregano, garlic, cloves and seville orange juice - so a bit different, and I'm sure there are other recipes.

Stewed chicken and rice 'n' beans seems to be the agreed national dish. The chicken is stewed with the above recado flavouring and served with the typical Caribbean beans and rice. Being the national dish, there is, of course, no one recipe, but of all the photographs that I found, they all looked pretty similar I have to say, and the rice was often served in a mound.

Hudut a dish from the Garifuna part of the population - the Carib Indian/African slave mix. It's a fish soup flavoured with coconut and okra and always served with mashed green and yellow plantains. It seems to me that the fish - or at least part of it is always kept whole as well, because virtually all of the photographs that I saw looked very similar to this one.

Ceviche - a dish found everywhere in the Carribean - and the South Pacific too and here most often made with conch and shrimp as shown here. I noticed that it often seems to be served with tortilla crisps.

Honestly I don't know what makes it particularly Belizean - lots of lime juice. Refreshing though.

Some breakfast/street food/pastry kind of things - Johnny cakes - an unleavened kind of bread - the Belizean twist being that they are made with coconut milk. Fry jacks - a deep fried bread dough. Meat pies - British mixed with Caribbean - the pastry is flaky and the meat, onion, capsicum filling is flavoured with that recado spice mix. Garnaches - crispy small tortillas topped with refried beans, onions, cabbage and cheese. Panades - Corn dough, flavoured with recado, a spicy filling of fish or meat, or vegetable, deep fried and served with a spicy onion sauce. Conch fritters - spiced up conch with chillis and peppers, deep-fried of course. All rather wonderful sounding but not all that healthy street foods.

Chimole - recado agian but this time it's black because it's roasted until black. A kind of chicken stew always served with hard-boiled eggs for some reason. Otherwise known as black dinner.

For dessert? Well there's Rum cake which seems to always be made with a yellow cake mix and also a vanilla instant pudding mix - with pecans in the crumble topping; and coconut tarts, made with fresh coconut and condensed coconut milk.