Belize Traditional Foods
Enjoyed in the Most Unusual Places

Belize traditional foods were served up regularly in our home in Scotland. Dad was a good cook and took pride in his culinary delights.

Stewed beans and rice were served up once or twice a month, and Fish Serre was also a favourite of Dad`s Belize recipes. He tailored it to his own tastes and you will see some differences in his recipes for Fish Serre and stewed beans and rice with those that are typical of Belize. Basically though, he stuck to the main ingredients that made his dishes traditionally Belizean as I discovered when I took my Belize trip.

If you happen to visit Cattle Landing in Punta Gorda, just ask the locals to direct you to Lucille`s, but whip up an appetite before you go as she will sure pile on the food.

Sea food tops the Belize traditional foods menu on the coast and Cayes. You will find shell fish like Conch or lobster when in season, and Stellar bone fish are a common menu item because they are so numerous in the waters off shore Belize, one can spot a shoal of these silver coloured fish miles away.

Grouper is another popular Belize food served on the coasts and are also numerous. They were swimming all around us when we went scuba diving. What they taste like, I don`t know because I never tasted it, but according to some folks it is one of the least fishy fish. So if your not really a fish eater then this fish would be a best choice if there was nothing but fish on the menu. Some people say it tastes like chicken.

Other fish that may be served up are tarpon, permit, snapper, marlin, jacks, black fin tuna, sailfish, and lovely, fat, wahoo! No! Not Yahoo!

Many of the fish recipes served up with coconut milk are from traditional Garifuna recipes like hudut. My dad used to cook Garifuna Fish Serre his style.

Belize traditional foods served inland are part of the Belize attractions. The dishes contain meat as the dominant ingredient. Chicken, beef, cow foot, oxtail, pigs tail all stewed in various rich, dark sauces. The pig tail or salt beef also is stewed with red kidney beans served up with rice; a traditional dish of Belize. All very tasty!

I find Belizeans have a sweet tooth too. Their desserts contain sweet, condensed milk, coconut, citrus fruit flavours and spices. And there is one of my favourite Belize recipes, bread pudding with rum or brandy added.

If you want to eat healthily with lots of greens and salads served up, make sure you ask for them. Belizean restaurants like to dish up lots of rice, green banana, cassava, in fact lots of starchy food along with the meat dishes. They do serve salads and other green vegetables but you have to ask for them. They are not freely offered as side dishes.

I remember how enjoyable Belize traditional foods tasted when they were served up at the Baron Bliss Ball in the Natural History Museum, Kensington, London in 1995.

They brought the spirit of Belize over the water to us with J.T.J`s calypso band and the comedienne Lauren Burgess, specially flown in to entertain us.

We sat down to brochettes of red snapper and shrimp served with spicy sweet peppers, followed by a main coarse of supreme of chicken, with piquant sauce, furnished with mango and lime. This accompanied savoury rice, candied yams and Belize bananas and a medley of green beans. The dessert followed with tropical night fruit salad with ginger and paw paw (papaya) ice-cream. Then we washed it all down with Le Piat D`or Dry White or Dry Rouge, and got up to dance it all off underneath the dinosaur bones!

Bon Appetite!

List of other Belize traditional foods -

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