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Belizean Fare by Terri Coffman |
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What is now known as Belize (formerly British Honduras) was the land of my youth. It is also where I experienced foods that might be classified as unusual, exotic, and sometimes, downright inedible by some standards. We lived on 100 acres in the jungle. Dad wasn’t a hunter, a trapper, or a fisherman. He was a farmer. He grew vegetables, peanuts, popcorn, and marigolds. Without electricity or running water, we made coffee out of roasted okra, and wine from the marigolds and the sweet fruit of the cashew tree. (The cashew nut with its hard, poisonous outer shell was discarded.) We roasted peanuts, made caramel popcorn, and guava jelly and orange marmalade for sale or trade. We grew habanero peppers and made a hot sauce that graced every table in town. We never went hungry. At any given time of the year there was always plenty to be harvested from the jungle itself: wild sweet plums, mangos, star apples, soursop, mamee, jicama, breadfruit, coconuts, bananas, cassava –both the sweet kind for eating, and the bitter kind used for making starch, and many other fruits, berries and roots indigenous to that part of Central America. We only had to know where to find them and get to them before birds or other animals did. On occasion, we kids even lucked into a chunk of raw chiclé, begged from a passing chiclero bringing his hard-earned goods to be sold, exported, flavored, and sold abroad as chewing gum. Domestic meat was a treat during our time there. Every morning, the local meat market in town, almost two miles away, would kill, clean, and cut-up whatever they had that particular day: a cow, goat, lamb, deer, or wild pig. (Domestic pigs were a personal luxury families that could would raise and butcher for a private special occasion.) A conch shell would be sounded to herald the opening of the market. People who could afford to buy, would line up eagerly with cloth-covered bowls or pails and patiently wait for their turn at the meat counter. Everything had to be sold that morning, because even in town there was no electricity. The meat sold for one dollar a pound B bones and all. That doesn’t sound like a lot in today's terms, but to put the value of a dollar back then into perspective, pay for a day's hard labor was $2 a day. To spend half of it on a pound of meat was out of the question for us. We had to rely on other means. We often bartered with local hunters and fishermen passing our way through the bush. We traded our fresh vegetables (and an occasional bottle of homemade wine) for part or all of their fresh kill. Peccary (wild pig), deer, rabbit, and armadillo were the most common trade‑offs, along with hicatee (fresh water turtle) and fish. Occasionally, there would be a gibnut B a large raccoon-size rodent that looks like a cross between a rat and a rabbit, without the long ears or tail. Sometimes the pickings were really slim: only a cow=s foot, hoof and all, used for making cow foot soup. (After having had this once, I can safely say, personally, I=d rather not subject my stomach to that torture ever again.) Dad absolutely drew the line at snakes of any kind. However, our favorite meat was bamboo chicken. Bamboo chicken, once a part of the staple diet in Belize due to its sheer numbers and availability, is now under the protection of the Belizean government. Strangely, bamboo chicken does not have feathers. In fact, it is not a chicken or type of bird at all. Bamboo chicken, or green iguana, can be stewed, boiled, fried, baked, or roasted, whole or in part. But first, you have to catch one, which is not an easy feat. Iguanas have amazing speed and agility on land, in water, and in trees. These herbivores, growing up to seven feet in length, have formidable tails that they use like a bullwhip and can slice a person's leg down to the bone. The male iguana, or grobo, was used as a food source as a last resort due to its toughness. The females, however, especially the pregnant ones, were hunted almost to extinction for their soft-membraned eggs and sweet, tender white meat - true delicacies! As time passed, the tiny country of Belize gained in popularity with the outside world. Now, one of the top 10 vacation spots in the world, Belize's Four and Five Star hotels and resorts boast of fresh spiny lobster, crab, conch, grouper, oysters on the half-shell, jumbo Gulf shrimp. And for those who don’t mind eating something akin to that which crawls in your garden, even escargots can be ordered, along with a variety of native foods that incorporate Belizean staple dishes like spicy rice and beans cooked in coconut milk, fried plantains, and fresh ground corn tortillas, with pibil, a favorite Mayan dish consisting of seasoned meat wrapped in banana leaves and cooked slowly in an underground oven. Fresh pineapple preserves and guava cheese may be offered with hot Johnny cakes or fried jacks. For dessert, double decaf latte, served with green papaya pie or fresh mango custard, tops off a first-class palatable experience. For those who desire something stronger than coffee, native Belikin beer and White Caribbean Rum flows as freely as the ocean breeze. My favorite Belizean recipe is the one that follows:
The National Dish 1
2
Caribs Mix well and bake slowly in an 80-degree tropical sun. Add salt water and let cool in an off‑shore breeze. The ingredients blend well when not stirred too much. (This recipe makes a friendly country of about 295,000 people.)
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